#and obi-wan has to bite his own hand and force himself to remember that Vader isn't a good person

[obiwanobi]

I'm imagining obi-wan and always a sith Anakin once again in battle and then Anakin sees like a common animal and stops the battle (obi-wan almost takes his leg and obi-wan can't understand why he even hesitated against this enemy). Then he starts taking holos of the animal and obi-wan goes... "It's a squirrel Darth" and Anakin goes something like "master never let me outside before the war!!" But then brushes it aside like "it's so small!" And then obi-wan just needs to lay down for 6 years

yes, yes!! I want Anakin to be mesmerized by the tiniest and most pathetic animal around, I love that he stops to take a holo 😭 Meanwhile Obi-Wan is debating with himself if he should take his chance and restrain him because Vader is crouched down cooing at the small animal, but it doesn't seem.... fair? especially when Vader manages to take a good holo and makes the most childish sound of victory he's ever heard a grown adult makes.

So Obi-Wan crouches down next to him and when Vader asks how its little feet aren't cold instead of stabbing him, his teacher instinct takes over and he goes on about wildlife while Vader listens almost attentively.

That's how Cody finds them ten minutes later and promptly decides to ignore it and turn around because he doesn't know how to even begin with everything wrong in this scene

[tennessoui]

for obikin, maybe pretending to hate each other au? (sth where their ages are a little closer, perhaps, so obi-wan can be intensely petty and not feel the need to Set an Example)

45. (Pretending To) Hate Each Other (raised as Sith!Anakin, salty!Padawan Obi-Wan)(1.6k)

Obi-Wan turns away from the training stalles with a barely suppressed sneer. Anakin, as he is to be called, has defeated his opponents. His fellow Padawans. Darth Vader has become a Padawan and everyone is just fine with it.

Obi-Wan marches out into the halls, not knowing where he’s going, but knowing he must get away from the smirk on Anakin’s face as he had lowered his training saber to his opponent’s neck. Does no one but Obi-Wan remember how just months ago Vader’s saber had been pressed against his neck and it hadn’t been a training exercise? Does no one remember the atrocities Anakin had committed, the sentients Anakin had killed?

And yet Obi-Wan’s master seems infinitely fascinated by the boy. And yet Obi-Wan, it seems, cannot step out of his own room without finding this Anakin underfoot, either taking tea with his Master, or dolefully skulking around the doorway of Obi-Wan’s quarters. What draws the boy, he has no lasting idea.

They’re approximately the same age, he supposes, although Obi-Wan has a few years at least on Anakin--it’s clearer to see now that Anakin has stopped wearing his helmet and armor into battle, now that the lines of his face are not hardened by scowls and snarls. Really, he’s a boy. His medical chart puts him at eighteen, making him four years Obi-Wan’s junior.

And, he supposes, Qui-Gon was the one to find Anakin wounded on the battlefield, the one to insist they treat the Sith, heal him, and give him shelter. But Obi-Wan was the one who had found the slave chip embedded between his ribcage, the one who had alerted the Council to its presence, so it could be used to find the boy’s master, to capture him or kill him, to end the war.

But surely, whatever small part Obi-Wan had played in the war’s conclusion, the Force should have known better than to repay him by gifting him with the care and keeping of a Sith Lord, Chosen One or not.

Although Obi-Wan can admit, even if only to himself, that it’s worse when Vader latches onto anyone else in the Temple. His master is too starry-eyed by his ideas of Vader’s midichlorians, his destiny as the Chosen One, to see the boy in front of him now.

And anyone younger than Vader is too easily swayed by his looks, his charm, his disgustingly transparent eagerness to know about the Temple, about the Jedi way of life.

Obi-Wan knows this. He’s fought a Sith at 20, fended it off after it dealt a nearly fatal blow to his Master. They cannot be reasoned with. Vader cannot be reasoned with.

Anakin exists only as a figment of their imaginations, their desire to have the Chosen One fly under the Jedi colors. He is not real, not anymore.

Gradually, Obi-Wan finds himself making his way up the stairs of the Jedi Temple. Of all the spots to hide--to sulk, as his Master would say--the rooftop is the one least likely to be checked. It is one of Obi-Wan’s favorite areas in the entire building.

But he had not thought to check for stragglers before arriving at his destination, had thought the thunderstorms of his own Force presence would keep others at bay. He hadn’t yet figured Vader into his calculations, hadn’t remembered the propensity Vader had for showing up right when Obi-Wan least wanted him to.

“You left,” Vader--Anakin--whoever accuses, as Obi-Wan sits down on the rooftop. The wind howls around them. Obi-Wan has the distinct thought that they’ve lived through this before, that last time Vader had cornered him on a rooftop, he had threatened to take a piece of his body home to his Master. Now, Vader is standing in his home.

Obi-Wan takes a very deep breath and banishes those sorts of thoughts. Anakin, he reminds himself. Anakin.

And just as importantly, the chip. There had been a chip. Not controlling Va--Anakin’s thoughts, but certainly controlling his actions. What he would do to survive is no different from what Obi-Wan had done to survive; they had just been on opposite sides of the war.

Is Obi-Wan weak for not being able to move past that? For not being able to greet the boy--the man--Anakin with open arms into the folds of his family?

“I did,” Obi-Wan replies, keeping his eyes on what he can see of the city skyline.

Anakin steps closer. “Why?”

He turns to face him, takes in his sweaty appearance and messy tunics. He must have been looking for Obi-Wan’s reaction. He must have seen the exact moment Obi-Wan had turned, must have scrambled to cloth himself as he followed after.

“Why does it matter?” He asks instead of answering, always instead of answering.

“Because I wanted you to watch,” Vader says.

“I’ve seen you kill Padawans before,” Obi-Wan turns away and stands up until he can lean against the high protective walls of the roof. “I wasn’t impressed.”

Vader feels frustrated in the Force. No. Anakin.

Anakin. “It was a training exercise.”

“Now,” Obi-Wan points out. “Or do you mean then?”

“Would you hate me if I said both?” “I hate you now, Vader.” The other boy’s Force signature withdraws, flinching away from Obi-Wan’s ire. He hears him sit down. He’d rather throw him off the roof.

But: “Don’t call me that,” the boy pleads quietly. “I know I can’t--that I don’t--” he cuts himself off and grows quiet.

Obi-Wan would say something to break the silence, but he doesn’t want to engage the boy if he doesn’t have to. If he closes his eyes, he can feel and see the Force raging around them, violently buffering them as it demands some sort of denouement.

The boy inhales and stands again, stepping forward hesitantly until he’s a scant foot away from Obi-Wan. “My mom always told me she thought for ages about my name. That it had come to her in a dream after I was already a month old, that it was bad luck to have waited for so long to name me because infants on Tatooine can die as quickly as their mothers.

“And then I...I couldn’t use it or hear it or speak it for so long that I think I almost forgot it, almost lost it to Sidious and...and Vader. So even if you hate me, and I know you should hate me, I know I’ve never done anything to you that cancels out the bad I’ve done to you, but. Please don’t call me that. I think it would have made her sad."

Obi-Wan works his jaw as he stares off into the city. He doesn’t think V--Anakin has ever said so many words to him. If he gives in now, he’d be just as bad as the other padawans who had welcomed Anakin in amongst them because of his big eyes and soft lips and earnest enthusiasm.

Anakin seems to take his silence as permission to continue, which it isn’t. “And I know I’m not. That I can’t be--won’t ever be a Padawan, or a Jedi Knight, that. That I’ll never wear a braid or anything. I’m not--I don’t want another Master. I never want another Master.”

Obi-Wan turns his head just enough to look at Anakin. He’s spent an awfully long amount of time hanging around Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s quarters if he doesn’t want a Master. But...what he’s saying makes sense, and, more importantly than that, soothes the furious emotions in Obi-Wan’s chest enough that he can speak. “Then I can’t understand why.” Why you’re here, why you won’t leave me alone, why you chose to follow me if you’re not trying to dispose of me and take my Master for yours.

Anakin sighs, leaning his head on his hands as he looks out at the city. Obi-Wan finds himself annoyed with that as well, even though he’d just been doing the same thing. Now he can’t tear his eyes away from Anakin’s profile.

“You’re warm in the Force,” Anakin says eventually. “I think maybe I spent too long in space, because I’m always cold. Except when I’m around you. You burn. You always have. I used to think that maybe--it was hatred or disgust at me, when I met you in battle, and you were an inferno. But you burn when you’re on creche duty too. A different kind of fire, but still so warm. It’s just your soul. It’s just who you are.”

Obi-Wan blinks open-mouthed at him. He’s never considered the thought that Vader--Anakin--had been trailing after him for anything other than easy access to his Master. Now he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do or say.

There’s a part of him that still doesn’t understand what Anakin wants to get out of his tenancy at the Temple, a part that whispers that the Sith can’t be trusted, no matter how blue they can make their eyes look. But the Jedi part of Obi-Wan is bigger.

The Jedi part of Obi-Wan tells him to extend his hand just enough to brush against Anakin’s exposed wrist. It’s a point of vulnerability the boy doesn’t shy away from.

“Would you…” he asks slowly, forcing the words out of his tight throat. “Like to meditate with me?”

Anakin looks astonished, then hopeful, then disappointed, then dejected. “I’m no good at meditating,” he says, scuffing the point of his shoe on the ground. “It wasn’t a huge part of my...former Master’s curriculum, and the Force is just so loud in my head that it’s hard to do anything but react.”

He looks up at Obi-Wan through his eyelashes, biting his lip as if he’s afraid that he’ll be turned away for this.

Instead, Obi-Wan turns fully to face him and latches onto his flesh hand. “There are some things, I’ve found,” he murmurs, leading them away from the edge of the roof before pulling Anakin down to sit cross-legged in front of him, “that are much easier done with someone else. Done together.”

[nevertheless-moving]

Suicidal Misunderstanding XIV

Part I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  Part XI - - - - Part XII - - - - Part XIII

Star Wars Time Travel AU #27

Plo Koon woke to find himself chained in a dark room.

Somewhere behind him he could hear steady dripping; it was uncertain if that was deliberate or not.

He strained to discern anything in the dim light, but the walls of his prison refused to form into anything recognizable.

Cautiously, the trapped Master cast his senses out, only to find them reflected back at odd angles. He decided to wait before attempting to push any further past what his captor wished him to see.

Time passed strangely, but sooner than expected there was the sound of a pressurized airlock opening and, distantly, a raging ocean.

The airlock cycled through its rotation and Obi-Wan Kenobi stepped out of the amorphous shadows looking...decidedly worse for the wear. 

Plo ached at the sight. His normally carefully maintained beard was a scraggly mess. His robes hung tattered and bloodied. Of particular concern was how dry he looked, skin cracked and bleeding for want of water. The figure standing before him with a dead-eyed glare resembled less an accomplished Jedi Master and more the wretched husk of one. 

“Who are you?”  Obi-Wan's shade hissed. The chains around the Kel Dooran tightened. 

Well, however he might view himself and others...at least he’s willing to fight to defend what remains? At the bare minimum he’s not acting intentionally self destructive...

“Good Morning, Obi-Wan. I am a Jedi Master and your friend. I have been attempting to reach you through your rather impressive shielding. I must say, you’ve done a remarkable job confining me in this mental construct, its been sometime since anyone has managed to get the best of me in this arena.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Don’t try and flatter me, you barely fought back. You could easily have forced your way anywhere, but for some reason you let me corral you, presumably to try and gain my trust. Now answer my question. Your presence is very much light so I doubt you’re Sidious or...Vader. I could be wrong obviously, but i can’t see either of themselves putting this much effort into that sort of mask...just tell me who you are, and why you’re with them.”

“I am Master Plo Koon, a High Council Member, and I am not unknown to you” he elaborated without hesitation. “I am glad that you can identify that I am a light force user. Can you not sense familiarity within my force presence, even so far within your domain?”

Obi-Wan reared back and the dripping noise in the corner stopped.

“It’s a trick. We might be in my head but that doesn’t mean I’m surrendering any of my thoughts to you,” Obi-Wan snarled. “I felt Plo Koon’s death, he was one of the first...and even if he somehow survived he would never work with the Sith to invade my mind. Never.”

“Obi-Wan. Listen to me. Please. I am not dead. I am not working with the Sith. I was brought in to reach you because no other method was working. You are in the healing halls at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.” Plo spoke calmly, but implacably, “We believe you have either experienced a uniquely detailed vision, or a run in with a dark-sider. Whatever has happened, I can feel the lingering impression of unsafety. But here and now, you are not in any immediate physical danger. There must be something I can do to convince you of your present physical location.”

“A uniquely detailed vision, huh? ha!” Obi-Wan replied, gesturing wildly. “Ha! You expect me to believe that what, the last four years of my life were a detailed prophecy? Why?”

“You...believe you have lived years beyond the rest of us. I take it the- what you remember has been dangerous enough to warrant maintaining abnormally tight control over your mental walls, precluding simply reaching out to ascertain the truth yourself.”

“Clearly my control wasn’t enough if you’re in here.” Obi-Wan muttered.

“I do apologize for the intrusion, but we’ve already used every other tool at our disposal to reach you. I repeat, is there anything that can be done to convince you that you are, from your perspective, ‘in the past’. You are a High Council member with a grandpadawan. It’s been two years since the start of the clone wars. You recently finished an extended clean up of the Mon Cala sector after your victory.”

Obi-Wan stared at him curiously. “If I set a test and you fail, will you agree to dispense with the pretenses?”

Plo-Koon hesitated. “Perhaps I’m making this deal in bad faith, as I am know I am Plo-Koon, and that everything I have said is the truth... but I swear that if you somehow prove that neither of those things are true and I am secretly working for a sith lord, I will...reveal that.”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Best I’m going to get, I suppose.”

The chains holding Plo-Koon loosened. Before he could respond, there was a hurtling rising sensation that he struggled not to fight against. After a disorienting moment, he found himself in his own body, feeling vaguely seasick. Obi-Wan blinked awake, apparently unfazed by the precautionary bonds holding him in place. Master Aerdo’s gaze flicked between them intensely. Plo-Koon held up a clawed hand to forestall any interruption while the two gained their bearings.

Obi-Wan spoke first:

“Cihynglo’s Fourth Meditation”

“...What?” Koon replied, honestly confused.

“Cihynglo was a renowned Kashykian Jedi, her mediations are, well i suppose were considered a quintessential example of High Republic cosmic poetry.”

“I’m familiar with Cihynglo- my master used to speak of her fondly.” Plo Koon said slowly. “Though I can’t say I’m familiar with her Fourth Mediation.”

“Hmm. Yes, well her poetry in the last few decades of her life got increasingly, well, esoteric. While most of her work was widely translated and distributed, she requested that those who wished to read her fourth Meditations do so in person, so as to experience without dilution the full calligraphy and artwork that accompanied her words. She only ever produced two copies. Any guesses where they were kept?”

Obi-Wan’s voice started out in the steady tones of a born lecturer, only to grow bitter towards the end.

“Is one in the temple?” Master Koon asked.

“Yes, one was held in the Master’s wing of the temple archives. The other was housed in a place of honor in The White Forest’s Great Tree of Knowledge. Considering both libraries were reduced to ash in the first month of the Empire, it is quite impossible, even for the Emperor, to find a copy.” 

His vague attempt at a smirk quickly fell flat. 

“I was privileged enough to be granted time to begin reading it once, but, alas, an emergency situation in the intergalactic war you created meant that I had to run off mid-sonnet. Bring me that book, let me hold it, read it, and I will believe that I somehow unlocked the secret of time-travel while overdosing on Spice.” 

Obi-Wan paused, catching his breath. “In the next fifteen minutes, please. Any more than that and you might try tracking down the few surviving Wookie scholars.” Koon flipped open his comm. “Master Nu, I have an urgent request.”

“Nu here, go on,” came the response.

“This may sound strange, but it is crucial that Cihynglo’s Fourth Meditation be brought to the healing halls, room seven. Within the next 15 minutes.”

“You do understand you’re talking about a physical book, not a flimsi-stack or a holocron. It’s not meant to leave a climate-controlled room.”

“I promise you, I would not ask if it weren’t life or death. Please Jocasta, I’ll explain later.”

“I’ll be there in 10. It had better be one durned good explanation.”

Obi-Wan looked bemused. ”You’re setting yourself up for failure.”

“I am glad you were able to come up with a test you found meaningful. Remember, you have friends here, regardless of whether you experienced subjective time travel or an incredibly detailed vision.”

They waited a little longer. Obi-Wan critically examined Master Aerdo.

“I’m a Senior Soul Healer” they offered at the non-verbal prompting.

“How interesting.” Obi-Wan remarked dryly.

They sat in awkward silence for another minute. 

They were all equally trained in suppressing fidgets, coughs, or other nervous tics, which made the wait that slightest bit more unbearable, each second nearly imperceptible from the one before.

Eventually the sound of heavy boots moving at speed approached.

Master Nu strode in, gently cradling a great burden. The book gleamed large and vital in the light of its stasis wrap. Her eyes widened at they took in Obi-Wan, still cuffed to the bed. 

“Cihynglo’s Fourth Meditation, as asked for. I trust you have an excellent explanation for how a book of poetry is a matter of life or death.”

“I’m hoping that it will convince our friend Master Kenobi that I am who I claim to be and we are where I claim we are.” Koon gently pulled the book from her grasp and reverently placed it on Obi-Wan’s lap. Obi-Wan stared at it uncomprehendingly.

“Obi-Wan, I’m going to uncuff you now. I trust that you will use your freedom to examine our ‘proof.’ We will physically intercede if you make any attempts at self harm.”

Master Nu gasped. “Then the temple rumors...I don’t understand.”

Obi Wan picked up the book as if he was afraid it might bite him. With an irritated snort, he opened brusquely to the middle, and began carelessly flipping ahead.

Master Nu started forward, offended, but Plo Koon held her back. “Please Master Nu, patience-”

Finally Obi-Wan seemed to reach the page he was looking for and stopped. “..And still the rain fell like blood of the womb” he murmured. “That...I tried to think of how the line ended but I...”

Everyone watched as the book shook in Obi-Wan's grasp. He turned the page, gasping slightly and murmuring as he read. “This is...a little gross, but oddly touching. I certainly would not have come up with it myself...but its so clearly...” They watched his react, eyes darting wildly and brow furrowing in confusion.

Several pages later he dropped the book abruptly.

“This is impossible,” he gasped.

Nu darted forward, carefully snatching it from his lap, "I am endeavoring to practice tolerance, but how is destroying an irreplaceable piece of literature supposed to help anyone?!” she snapped

“I admit I wondered that myself, but when I imagined what harm the Sith could do with some of the archive’s more practical works, I understood your decision to torch the collection” Obi-Wan responded dreamily. “I suppose the more beautific works would likely have been destroyed anyway...”

“Torch the archives? I would never.”

“But you did,” Obi-Wan insisted feverishly. “I found your message when we searching for survivors. There were so many bodies piled at the archive door that I was almost hopeful that they had managed to...but I suppose they held out just long enough for you to complete your task.”

Nu backed away slowly. “That sounds like quite the disturbing vision, Master Kenobi.”

“It wasn’t just a vision, it was my life. It-visions don’t last years!” he said, finally growing hysterical. “I remember everything! That gods-awful mission to Cato Nemodia! Getting takeout food with Anakin! The smell of burning flesh in the creche! Singing to Luke! The last year of the war! All of you! You crying after Dooku’s death,” he added gesturing wildly at the archivist. “It was so awkward! You were embarrassed! You told me that for some stupid reason you had ‘held out hope’ it was all an insane uncover mission, that he wasn’t really- Three years alone in the desert! I remember three years of living on fucking Tatooine, how could that possibly be a vision!”

“I...hadn’t told anyone that,” Nu whispered with a hint of alarm. She glanced at Plo Koon, daring him to comment. “I know its very much unlikely at this point, and by any measure, he’s taken things too far, but he’s gone on such long shadow missions in the past...” she looked away.

“Oh, Jocasta...” Plo sighed.

“Master Kenobi. I cannot explain how you came to have such detailed knowledge of the future,” Aerdo said, drawing focus back to the bewildered Obi-Wan, who had shifted into a defensive crouch on the bed. “But I do know one reasonably sure fire way to establish that this, us, is the present. Open yourself up to the force, please, just let yourself listen to what it has to say.

“I...want to, of course I want to believe- but the idea that I’m here- it’s, if you’re real than you can’t possibly understand, its too good to be true.” Obi-Wan responded brokenly.

“I know things have been clouded of late, but, if nothing else trust in the force to not lie to you.” Plo-Koon urged. “If you keep closing yourself off like this, how can you possibly learn if things are better than you think”

Obi-Wan collapsed from his crouch, knees folding underneath.

“If I am...even if I am in the past... Sideous might be watching...i didn’t- i don’t know the extent of his gaze- even if...” he trailed off.

“If it makes you feel safer, you are of course free to again raise your shields to whatever extent you feel necessary once you have verified your reality.” Aerdo replied smoothly.

Obi-Wan looked warily at the three Jedi in the room.“I...” he started, trying to articulate the swelling hope and fear only to find himself at a loss for words.

Aerdo shot him a reassuring smile, “If you don’t feel ready right now, that’s perfectly understandable. We’re very happy you’re willing to reach out as much as you have already. Would you like to pause this discussion for now so we can find you something to eat? I believe a simple broth is a customary first post-bacta meal, but if you have any special requests I’ll do what I can.”

Obi-Wan let out a deep breath, dropping his head into his hands. “I- I need to know, don’t I?” he mumbled. “Force help me...you win.” He took one last, searching look at the faces of his fellow Jedi before closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the force.

He opened a small hole in his mental barricades and tentatively allowed his thoughts to drip out. Tentatively, he trickled over the bank of Plo Koon’s being (expecting a frigid burn) only to find a warm and heartbreakingly familiar pool of tempered kindness. 

He ran, slightly faster now, over the other Jedi presences in the room. Having finished his course without encountering any dark undertow, he ebbed back. There was an indistinct impression of something heavy giving way.

Obi-Wan’s Shields Fell Like A Dam Beneath a Tidal Wave -

[sonoftatooine]

Whumpay 2021

DAY 19: HOPE / DESPAIR

Finally, this one took ages

Characters: Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker

Warnings: Brainwashing

Summary: Winter Soldier AU - Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker disappeared from the face of the Galaxy the day Palpatine executed Order 66. Padmé Amidala, however, managed to escape from Coruscant when the Empire was formed and became a founding member of the Rebellion. Several years later, when Obi-Wan Kenobi manages to capture the Emperor’s infamous Sith apprentice, Darth Vader, Padmé is left to deal with the horrifying discovery of what happened to her husband at the fall of the Republic.

***

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Padmé Amidala, former Senator of Naboo and member of the High Council of the Rebel Alliance, frowned down at the screen displaying the flickering vid feed of her lost husband in the room adjacent to the high security—or as high security as their current base could afford them—cell in which he was being held.  She had been stood there for at least ten minutes, hovering, waiting, and in all of that time, Anakin had not so much as twitched—so much so that she might have been fooled into thinking that she was looking at a still image if not for the rise and fall of his chest and the occasional blink. It was so unlike him—her restless husband, always on the move, but who had always come back to her until the day that he didn't—that it made her eyes burn with the effort to hold back tears. This was wrong, so wrong—

“Yes, Obi-Wan, I'm sure” she said once she was sure she could bite back the sharp reply that was on the tip of her tongue that the man beside her didn't at all deserve. Of course she was sure. How could she not be sure, when this was her husband—the man she loved with all the force of a thousand stars—at stake? She had to.

“You don't have to, Padmé.” Stood beside her, arms folded over his chest, and tired blue eyes fixed as unrelentingly on Anakin's frozen figure as her own, Obi-Wan Kenobi sighed, his mouth curved downwards in an unhappy line. Grief had aged him badly since the horrors of Order 66 and the beginnings of Palpatine's Empire. There were new lines around his eyes, and his auburn hair was fast turning white, but the change over those years was not nearly as stark as that which had been wrought upon him over the past few days. He looked raw and worn down, no matter how he tried to disguise it with his regular stoicism, as if he was on the verge of being swallowed by despair. Ever since the Empire had come for him on his last mission. Ever since they had managed to capture the Emperor's enforcer, Darth Vader.

Vader. Lord Vader. The name sent a shiver of horror through her, but not for the reasons that it once had. Before, she had known him simply as the latest in what seemed to be Darth Sidious' ever replenishing supply of Sith apprentices, and one of the most troubling additions to the Empire's ranks. Robed and masked entirely in black, without even the slightest indication to what lay beneath his impenetrable disguise, he had been a complete unknown to all but Palpatine himself—Empire and Rebellion alike—save for the brutal efficiency with which he carried out his duties. They had watched the Emperor's transmission introducing him to the Galaxy—her and Obi-Wan and Bail, while Luke and Leia slept soundly in their cribs watched over by Threepio and Artoo—from their bunker about a year after the Empire was formed. Padmé remembered seeing him, standing tall and motionless, three steps behind his master, and had felt a frisson of fear and misery run through her that she hadn't quite understood at the time.

She understood now. Oh Force, she thought as the image of Anakin, swamped in black robes and strapped, unconscious, to a gurney, and Obi-Wan's anguished look as he gasped out “he doesn't remember us; he doesn't even remember who he is”, swam through her mind. Oh Force, she understood now.

“Yes, I do,” she said, with a nod that looked far more decisive than she felt. She clutched the pile of warm cloaks and blankets that she had brought with her tight to her chest. Anakin had always hated the cold, and she couldn't bear the thought of him all alone in that cell without at least making sure he was as comfortable as possible. “He's my husband. I want to see him.”

She wanted to see him ever since they had brought him off the ship, ever since she had been dragged away from Coruscant by a harried Obi-Wan and Bail, crying and begging for them to take her back, that they needed to find Anakin, they couldn't leave him there. Anakin who she had last seen standing to the right of the Chancellor during the meeting of the Delegation of the 2000, hands bundled into the voluminous sleeves of his Jedi robes and not quite able to meet her eyes. Who had been sent by the Council to report to Palpatine the day of Order 66, and had never been seen since.

Until now.

“Padmé, he tried to attack me when I went to talk to him,” Obi-Wan reminded her grimly. “Ahsoka too. He doesn't remember any of us. All he knows is what Sidious has made him believe. What if he hurts you?”

Padmé shook his head.

“He won't hurt me” she whispered. He wouldn't hurt her. Anakin would never— But she didn't think he could ever have tried to hurt Obi-Wan either. Or Ahsoka. But he didn't remember any of them, because Sidious had taken him and forced him to forget everything, turned him into his weapon— She was shaking, full of rage and grief, but she pushed them both down. It was alright now. It would have to be alright. He was with the Rebellion now and they would heal him of whatever vile Sith had done to him and then he could meet their two precious children and everything would be alright—

“Padmé.” She thought, faintly, that Obi-Wan had managed to hone saying her name in a tone of utmost exasperation and frustration to a fine art. No doubt Anakin had given him a great deal of practice in the past. “He's not the Anakin we know. Not anymore.”

This time, it took a great deal more effort for her to swallow her harsh retort. Obi-Wan had given up hope a long time ago—the night of Order 66 when his bond to Anakin had snapped. He had thought him dead, and blamed himself for it—the Council had pushed him into spying on Palpatine, he had said, and he was sure that Anakin had discovered the man's secret and been killed for it. She remembered how he had looked, blurred through her tears as they rushed through hyperspace away from Coruscant—dishevelled and worn, the telltale signs of his battle with Grievous burnt into his Jedi robes, and a haunted look in his eyes, misted up with tears that he refused to let fall. He had come back from his last visit to Anakin's cell much the same, convinced that his old padawan had died with whatever it was that Palpatine had put him through, that what was left was nothing but a shell of the man he had loved as a brother.

(It still hadn't stopped him from abruptly ending a call with Yoda when the old Jedi Grandmaster had suggested “lost to the Dark, young Skywalker is; let him go, you should”.)

“I don't believe that,” she said. She had never believed Anakin to be dead. Refused to believe it, told Luke and Leia all sorts of stories about their brave and dashing father that she saw so much of in each of them, hoping beyond hope that one day he would be there to share his own stories with them. She wasn't about to give up now, when he was here—finally here, in front of her, no matter how changed, and no matter what Jedi platitudes about letting go she heard. “We can save him. I know we can.”

She turned her pleading gaze to Obi-Wan, but he refused to meet her eyes. He was still staring at the screen, and though his expression was blank, she could see the longing in his gaze—longing and fear. Fear that he would get his hopes up when nothing could be done. Fear that she would get hurt trying. Padmé sighed sadly. Obi-Wan may have given up hope, but she wasn't about to let him fall into despair.

“Obi-Wan, you'll be here the whole time,” she said, softly, soothingly. “I have faith that you'll protect me, if need be.”

Obi-Wan scowled, finally turning to look at her, but there was a hint of something gentle and fond beneath it.

“The pair of you will be the death of me” he sighed. It was barely a ghost of how he had been before, when they had all been together and happy and none of them had been brainwashed into becoming a Sith, but it was familiar enough that Padmé couldn't help but send him a watery smile.

“Please, Obi-Wan, I'm ready.”

Reluctantly, Obi-Wan nodded.

“I'll be just on the other side of the door.”

Despite her words, Padmé's heart felt like it might burst out of her chest as she stepped into Anakin's cell, the pneumatic hiss of the door closing behind her reverberating in her ears like a threat. She was not afraid. At least, she was not afraid of the figure sitting, head bowed, on the little cot in front of her—he had not attacked any of his visitors since the two Jedi; indeed, had barely acknowledged them, enough so that the High Council had deemed it as safe as it would ever be for her to see him—but she was afraid of what would happen next. Of what she would learn from this meeting. Of looking into her husband's eyes and finding him unrecognisable. But Padmé was never one to shy away from things that made her afraid, and so she took a deep breath, and murmured:—

“Anakin.”

No response.

“I brought these.” She gestured to the robes and blankets in her arms. “I thought you might be cold.”

That got a reaction from him. Slowly, jerkily, as if his head were being lifted up by a string, he turned his face towards her. The sight of him made her want to scream—scream and cry and hold him in her arms and never let go. He looked sick and gaunt, and the change from golden tan to waxy white looked even more stark under the bright lights of the cell, the circles under his eyes dark like bruises. And his eyes, oh his eyes. The sparkling blue that she remembered—had loved and missed so much for all that she saw it every day in the face of their son—had been replaced with the same horrible yellow that she had seen deep set in the sunken face of Emperor Palpatine, gleaming cruelly under the shadow of his hood, during Empire Day transmissions. But that wasn't even the worst of it. Anakin's eyes had always been so expressive, brimming with love and joy and fear and anger and grief, as if he felt too much and too deeply to keep it all inside. It was one of the things that she loved about him. Now, however, he turned those sickly eyes to her and she saw nothing in them but blankness. For the first time in his life, Anakin Skywalker looked upon her and he felt nothing.

Padmé swallowed, fighting back the urge to cry. She wanted to run to him, bury her fingers in his hair and press her lips to his as she used to do each time he came home to her from the war, but, with what felt like a monumental effort, she pushed the desire away. That wasn't what Anakin needed right now, no matter how much she wanted it. Instead, she waited for him to reply, waited for some sort of acknowledgement—anything to indicate what she should do, what she should say.

None came.

She sighed. Stepping forward, she leaned down and placed the pile of clothes next to him on the bed, trying to keep her heart from shattering into a thousand pieces at the tiny flinch he gave as she approached him. Carefully, so as not to startle him, she pulled back, coming to a stop once she was far enough away for him to relax minutely. Hot tears burnt at her eyes.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked, wishing that her voice did not sound so shaky, so thick with emotion. Anakin had always had a way of bringing out absolute honesty in her—even when she didn't even know she was trying to hide something—and now, confronted with her husband whom she hadn't seen in years, and who had spent every day of those long years suffering under the man who had enslaved the entire Galaxy to his will, all her politician's training, all her masks and airs had fled her. Even if she had wanted to, she couldn't have done a thing to hide her feelings from him.

Anakin frowned.

“You are Padmé Amidala,” he answered tonelessly. His voice was as dead and as flat as the look in his eyes. He sounded hoarse and tired, like he used to after waking up from a particularly bad nightmare. Like he had when he had when he had dreamt of her death in childbirth, only a week before he had disappeared, before she had run and left him— “One of the founders of the Rebellion.”

“That's right,” she said, with a nod that she wasn't sure was meant to encourage him or herself. “Do you— Is there anything else you remember about me?”

She knew it would be no. She knew he remembered nothing. But she wanted so badly for him to remember at least something of her. Wanted to know that Sidious hadn't taken everything from him. No matter what she wanted, though, she knew what his answer would be. Knew it and feared it.

“I understand that it's more usual for an interrogator to ask their prisoner for information,” Anakin replied. He tilted his head to the side, the expression on his face somewhere between confused and wary. “Not questions about themselves.”

He didn't sound like Anakin. Or rather, he sounded like Anakin—his voice sounded like Anakin, but the words, said in that flat, dull tone— It was wrong, all wrong. Oh my love, Padmé thought. My love, what has that monster done to you?

“I'm not interrogating you, Anakin” she said. She fought keep her voice steady and calm, even as she wanted nothing more than to burst into tears. Anakin's frown deepened, a look of suspicion flitting across his face.

“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” he asked, and for the first time, there seemed to be a hint of something else in his flat tone, a hint of uncertainty, of apprehension. His hands twitched, like he wanted to twist his fingers together like he used to do beneath the sleeves of his Jedi robes when he was nervous. Instead, he balled them tight into fists.

Padmé sent him a watery smile.

“It's your name, Ani.”

My Ani, she thought, watching him twitch oddly at the contraction of his name, turning sharply away. Her Ani who didn't even remember his own name. Oh, what was she going to do. How could she help him when he remembered nothing—nothing about his friends, nothing about her, nothing about himself—and they didn't even know what it was that Palpatine had done to him to cause this? She felt despair rushing in on her like a shark that had scented blood in the water, but she pushed back against it. She couldn't given in now. For Anakin's sake, she couldn't give up hope.

“How much has Obi-Wan told you?” she asked carefully. It was a risk mentioning Obi-Wan—a Jedi, a man he had ostensibly been sent to kill before the Rebellion had captured him—but she needed to know how much he had actually taken in.

Yellow eyes flicked back to her, the wariness and suspicion turning his expression even more closed off and guarded than it had been before.

“He told me I was once his Jedi apprentice,” he replied. “But I suppose you'll claim that I was your closest friend in the Senate. Or have you had the chance to corroborate your stories since Kenobi's last visit?”

The harshness of his words—as much as their content—made it all the harder to hold back her tears. Anakin had hardly ever spoken to her like that, was hardly ever sharp with her. Around her, perhaps, when he was particularly upset or frustrated, but rarely with her. It was yet another reminder of what had been done to him—the changes Sidious had forced upon him, as if he were nothing but a droid to be reprogrammed according to an owner's desire. Well, she would fix it, she would help him, and she would never let that vile man near him again. But to do that, she would have to get him to believe her, and for him to believe her, she—

“I'm not lying to you,” she insisted. “I promise you. It's Palpatine—Sidious—who has lied to you. You were a Jedi—have been since you were nine years old. Near the end of the war, the Council was concerned about the powers Palpatine had gathered for himself and sent you to report on him. But you— They sent you to his office the day he ordered the Jedi killed and then you disappeared. The Jedi thought you were dead, but he took you and he did something to you and you don't remember it because—”

“No.”

The sharp growl silenced her rambling mid-sentence. Her mouth clicked shut and her eyes widened as Anakin stood abruptly from the bed, his expression as hard as durasteel. Padmé swallowed, a flicker of nervousness fluttering in her stomach that she ruthlessly pushed down. She wondered if Obi-Wan was getting ready to dash into the cell from the other side of the door, afraid that he was about to attack her. But she refused to share that fear. She had never been afraid of Anakin, and she never would.

“No,” Anakin repeated, more softly this time. Instead of starting towards her, he prowled away to the far corner of the cell, back not quite turned to her—just enough to keep her in his line of sight—and hunched in on himself, arms crossed defensively across his chest. It was such a familiar gesture that, despite herself, Padmé couldn't help but feel a sliver of relief at the sight of it. Whatever Sidious had done to him, he hadn't managed to chase every last part of him from his mind. “My master warned me about this,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “He told me that you would try to deceive me, turn me against him—”

“He's the one deceiving you!,” she cried, trying to ignore worm of uneasiness in her stomach at the thought of the Emperor warning her husband against the Jedi and the Rebellion—or perhaps her specifically. If she could just get him to see, just get him to believe— “I don't know what he's done to you but please, Anakin, all we want is to help you. All I want is to help you. But to help you, I need you to believe me—”

She approached him, slowly, cautiously, as one might a wounded animal. His gaze fixed on her the whole way, wary, unrelenting, but he did not move, frozen to the spot. She itched to reach out to him, to pull him in and hold him close, but she wrestled the urge down to the depths of her heart.

“Please, Ani,” she begged, barely a whisper. “Please.”

Anakin stared down at her, and for a moment, she thought she saw a flash of blue in those yellow eyes.

“You haven't told me who you are,” he said, after a long moment of silence. His tone was guarded, cautious, just as quiet as her own. “Who you were to me. If what you say is true, what did I mean to you?”

Everything, Padmé thought. You meant everything to me. You mean everything to me. You and Luke and Leia. And one day, I'll be able to have them meet their father and you'll mean everything to them too. Her heart, too full of love and fear and hope and despair, ached in her chest, snatching up all her words before they could reach her mouth. How could she say all of this to him? How could she say any of this to him, when he barely believed she was telling him the truth about his name?

“You're—”

She faltered, unsure what to do. Would it be too much for him, finding out that he was married to a woman he didn't even remember? But what could she say? She couldn't lie to him—wouldn't lie to him. She wanted him to trust her again, like he used to before everything had gone so wrong, and how could they ever help him if they too deceived him?

“I'm...I...I'm your wife.”

Anakin froze stock still.

“...What?” he whispered hoarsely.

“It's true.” Padmé could no longer stop herself. She reached out slowly with both hands, making to smooth down his hair—it had always calmed him down after a nightmare; maybe if he accepted the truth, it might soothe him a little now? He gave an odd little jerk at the contact, his tongue darting out nervously to wet his lips, but he didn't pull away, still frozen to the spot, staring down at her with wide eyes. “Please believe me. It's true. I'm your wife—”

“No,” Anakin cut across her again. This time, however, his eyes had not hardened, and he could see the uncertainty creeping into them. His voice shook. “No, you're a liar.”

His hand—the one of durasteel that she had held at their wedding after he lost it to Count Dooku—darted up to snatch her wrist. But instead of shoving her right away, he held her in place, her hand hovering between them, arm extended towards him, as if he could not decide whether to push her aside or pull her closer. Padmé stared into his eyes, vaguely aware that Obi-Wan was probably panicking by now on the other side of the door. She could feel the strength in his grip, well acquainted with what his mechno hand could do. He had been horribly embarrassed when he had managed to crush several of her cups after their wedding, still unused to the amount of force his prosthetic required compared to his flesh hand. If he wanted to, he could tighten his grip now and crush her just as he had those cups, shatter every bone in her wrist. But he did not press down. He didn't even so much as grip hard enough to bruise.

“I'm not,” she cried—really cried, the tears she had been holding back starting to trickle down her cheeks. “I swear to you—”

“You didn't corroborate your stories after all,” Anakin retorted. “I could hardly have been a Jedi and a husband.”

Padmé shook her head, blinking heavily to keep the tears from blurring her vision. It would be alright, she told herself. She could persuade him. His voice was not nearly so certain as his words, and if she could just explain properly—

“You broke the Code to marry me,” she said. “We kept it secret, so you could stay as a Jedi and I could keep serving in the Senate until the war was over—”

“How convenient” Anakin returned, perhaps not as derisively as he had intended. He still hadn't let go of her wrist.

Padmé shook her head again, more insistently this time. She reached once more with her free hand to cradle his cheek in his palm.

“Please, Anakin, please. I love you. I love—”

“No!” With a cry, Anakin jerked backwards. The durasteel fingers wrapped about her wrist pulled away. “No! You—”

But words seemed to be beyond him. He staggered back, hand shooting out to steady himself against the wall, but it wasn't enough. His legs failed him, and he sank down to the floor, forehead pressed to his knees, trembling violently.

“This isn't—,” he hissed. “You can't— It's a trick. It's a trick—”

His hands fisted in his hair, so tight that Padmé thought he might tear clumps of it out. She rushed to his side, wiping her tears away furiously with her sleeve. She had pushed him too far. It was too much for him—too much at once.

“Padmé.”

Anakin's head shot up just as Padmé turned around to see Obi-Wan standing in the doorway, trying to remain impassive and failing miserably. She caught a flurry of movement in the corner of her eyes—Anakin had forced himself to stand back up, pressed up against the wall. He looked like a cornered loth-wolf, hunched in on himself, ready to spring, his yellow eyes wide and feral.

“It's alright,” Obi-Wan soothed, holding up the palms of his hands to show him he wasn't armed. Despite the calmness of his tone, Padmé could hear the agony beneath his words. “I won't hurt you. We will leave you to rest now.”

He turned a significant glance towards her, and Padmé could do nothing but nod, for all that she wanted to stay. She didn't want to overwhelm Anakin any more than she had already. Swallowing thickly, she forced down her tears, turning to meet her husband's unnatural yellow eyes with her own glistening brown.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry.”

She made it to the other side of the door before she broke down in tears.

(Later, when she came to check on him to find him curled up in the warm robe she'd brought him, she cried for very different reasons).

[inkformyblood]

in these bodies we will die

Commander Cody Week Day 04: Post-Order 66 @commandercodyweek

Pairing: Codywan, QuinObi, Cody x Obi-Wan x Quinlan Summary:  Cody knows something is going to go wrong when he wakes up on a mission to execute a Jedi. But that is also just a matter of perspective. Most days, the trooper wakes up and finds that he is still CC-2224. The world around him is sharp and dark: the purple crackle of his electrostaff mingling with the steady beat of his heart which remained as rhythmic as a march, until it blotted out everything else. He is nothing but a weapon, and he waits patiently for his orders, whatever they may be. 

On those days, he knows his place in the durasteel universe, following his Lord and enacting his will. The sneers — openly worn and honed to a razor’s edge — from the Brothers and Sisters that made up the Inquisitors didn’t impact him in the way they were hoping, because why would they? He is a weapon, one of a few who had been gifted beskar by their Lord, and who served at his convenience. 

“Trying for a saber of your own?” Ninth Sister spat one day as she stormed from the throne room, her anger rolling from her like lightning and breaking harmlessly on the impassive countenance of CC-2224. “Trying to be a Brother, clone?”

“I’m already a brother,” CC-2224 tells her, but he doesn’t know why. She turns on her heel and leaves in a swish of black fabric, and he returns to waiting for his next order. He listens to the rumbling breaths from Darth Vader, the slight mechanical click between each hissing exhalation adding to the reflexive count in his head. 

When Cody wakes on the transport, he knows that something has gone horribly wrong.

The floor shuddered beneath his feet with each roar of the massive engines, but the room is eerily silent. Before… Before when he was— Cody cut the thought off before it could travel any further. His mind felt fragile, as if it was constructed from freshly spun glass, and he knew that if it broke, he didn’t know how long it would be before he was able to pull control back again. Or even if he would want to.

Bile rose in his throat, hot and thick and acrid, and his shoulders contorted with the effort of keeping the scream trapped in his throat. He had woken up as Cody before but never prior to a mission. Never held the ability to escape, or to die, as closely as he did now. 

He could remember, beneath the dark edges of the Executor and the constant hiss-click sound of the man who had once been Anakin Skywalker, a single moment of clarity as he knelt in front of the shell that hid his rotted carcass. Cody had been holding a lightsaber, the edges of it scorched and warped, and the scent of iron lingered in the air from the blue blood that had seeped into the handle. For a moment, his thumb had twitched over the ignition switch that could have been his salvation or his doom, but then Cody was gone once again as Darth Vader raised his chin with one gloved finger. 

“Well done, Commander. I am glad to see I chose correctly.”

Cody had to hold on. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he blindly ran a hand over the wall, fingers splayed until he found the recess, pulling the datapad free. 

For an instant, before the screen activated, Cody caught sight of his reflection in the tinted transparisteel and felt the world threaten to fall away from him once more, nothing but the void waiting to consume him utterly. 

 What had Anakin done?

Obi-Wan — traitor to the Republic, good soldiers follow orders, no! — hadn’t spoken about Anakin’s past, but a trooper would have had to be blind to not see the marks that his past had left on him, the anger that burnt low in his eyes and caused his mouth to twist whenever someone mentioned the troopers being owned. Cody had seen the scar on Anakin’s arm from his tracker removal, straight and well-healed compared to the now-ruined tapestry of scars that had covered his back. 

Cody’s fingers didn’t tremble as he raised his hand to his face, trailing a line from scalp to chin. He couldn’t feel anything different, a few new minor scars here and there pitting his skin like the surface of a moon, a far cry from the whorled raised scar that curled around his left eye. But that didn’t subtract from the new knowledge he carried: that Anakin had branded him like property with a red tattoo that would mar his skin forever. 

Focus.

Breathe in, then out.

(I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.)

Cody focused on the datapad, reading over the minimal briefing he had been given, doom slipping over his shoulders like a shroud. He had been sent to hunt a Jedi, to track the whispers of a survivor and kill them. 

Laughter, harsh and uncaring, bubbled up in his throat, trapped behind the cage of his teeth. What was one more when Cody had killed one of the men he loved with barely a second thought?

⁂

Cody felt himself slip partially beneath the waves of his consciousness the moment the trooper stepped outside the ship, hiding away from the first flicker of unspeakable terror that passed over a civilian's face at the sight of him. 

The CC-2224 knew the motions, just as well as Cody did. Alpha-17 had vanished into the wind, from what little he had managed to find out from scraps of rumors, but he remembered his, and the other trainers, words well. 

Move quick, strike hard, complete the mission. 

Salt clung to every visible structure, encrusted pillars that distorted the shapes of the shipping crates and barrels into hunched figures as CC-2224 stepped into the warehouse. His electroshock baton lit up with a hiss, bathing the room in a vibrant purple, and the trooper took a step forward. The floor crunched beneath his boot, grinding down the patchwork of salt as he slowly followed the faint trail of footprints, head tilted to one side as he listened. 

The Jedi — the traitor, no, all of them, traitors — was cornered with nowhere to run and had never been more dangerous.

He saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he is turning before the trooper can even think, but it is Cody who shouts, his voice tinged with a desperation that could have ripped the stars from the sky at a word. “Quinlan!”

The man stumbled, caught off guard for only a moment, before he turned, igniting his lightsaber. The green blade stole Cody’s breath away, Quinlan’s lips drawn back in a snarl as he shifted into the beginning position of Ataru, the muscles in his legs visibly bunching as he prepared to jump.

Cody knew what he would do. He had seen it so many times before; a deadly dance made beautiful by the care and precision behind it: a single leap and twist, with the blade following barely half a second behind, leaving nothing but death in its wake. 

His helmet clattered to the ground, the air biting at the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Then, the hiss of Quinlan’s blade stopped as the Jedi deignited it, stumbling forward half a step before he caught himself, hurt emblazoned across his face.

Cody was struck by how different he seemed now to their last parting. Before, where Obi-Wan had been the rising sun and Cody was moonlight, Quinlan was the midday sun, bright and vibrant and intoxicating. He had curled into Cody’s side, one leg thrown across his hip to prod at Obi-Wan, who was motionless, except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. His breath still held the sweetness of the wine from the previous evening, part celebration and part regret at having to be parted once more even as the war slowly drew to a close.

Extracting himself was a journey in parts as Quinlan slowly worked his way free, every movement languid and tinged with a deep melancholy. 

“You don’t have to get up with me,” he whispered, cupping Cody’s face with one battle-worn hand, his thumb smoothing over the jut of his cheekbone. Quinlan’s eyes slipped out of focus for a moment, warm brown no longer studying every inch of Cody’s face, but between one blink and the next, a warm grin spilled across his face. “But it is good to see you both.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Cody replied. It felt like a paltry offering compared to the roaring fire that rekindled itself in his chest for sustenance at the mere thought of the other men, but Quinlan only laughed, low and deep, before kissing him again.

“When the war is over—“ Quinlan cut off Cody’s attempt at protest with another kiss, infuriating and effective all at the same time before he continued, intent on daring the universe to defy him. “When the war is over, we will be together again.”

Cody tasted the promise like caff on his tongue, hoping with every shattered piece of him that Quinlan was right. His hands were steady as he untied the small token — a nondescript twist of metal with the edges worn smooth through the Force — from the leather tie around his neck, and pressed it into Quinlan’s hands. 

The man stepped backwards, a chill settling in the space between them, and closed his eyes. Cody settled back into the warmth of Obi-Wan’s embrace, watching the peace settle across Quinlan’s face, the edges of his grin softening. 

“Beautiful.”

“How?” Quinlan demanded, his voice harsh and broken, ripping Cody from the memory. “Why?” 

Cody’s hands spasmed around the handle of the electro baton, the urge to ignite it almost overwhelming. Quinlan was close, too close.

“Didn’t— Couldn’t—“ The words would choke him before he could speak. His free hand shook as he raised it, signing a single clumsy message as he trembled with the effort. 

He still tried to flinch away from the blow that Quinlan landed, the heavy hilt of his lightsaber thinking against his temple, then Cody was gone once again. 

When he woke, it could have hours, days, weeks, years later. But he was Cody, settling into the body it felt like he had borrowed, with a slight shift of his shoulders as he tested the restraints. 

He knew that he was on a ship, could feel the floor vibrating beneath him through the thin padding of the cot he was lying in. His stomach twisted and rolled as the autopilot shuddered into life, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Pain pulsed through his head like a second heartbeat, blurring his vision when his eyes slipped open in coordination with the door. 

“Morning, Cody. Have I ever mentioned how blood-soaked is a very attractive look on you?”

“That makes three times now.” The words clawed up his throat as he spoke, dried blood flaking from his face with every movement. “And you were even stone-cold sober for one of them.”

“Such a liar,” Quinlan teased, his laugh choked and distorted by the tears that ran down his cheeks. The soft sound of metal clinking together followed him as he walked across the room, and Cody caught sight of the countless mementos strung across his chest on a sturdy chain.

“I can’t untie you,” Quinlan said, his voice heavy with regret as he sat on the edge of the bed. “After the first time, when you woke up and you weren’t you—“ He broke off with a grimace, the action mirrored by Cody.

He could barely breathe, regret and hope he thought he had killed long ago wrapping around his throat like a noose. “Are you okay?”

Quinlan laughed, the sound a distant echo from the rich timbre Cody remembered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together in Keldabe. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I’m notoriously hard to kill, which I guess is lucky for us both.”

As if sensing the dark direction Cody’s thoughts were starting to spiral in, Quinlan moved closer and kissed him gently, blotting out the universe for everything but soft warmth and the bite of salt and iron.

“I know about the chip. I can’t destroy it, cyar’ika.” 

Sorrow ripped through Cody’s chest like a blaster bolt. The memory of teaching Quinlan ‘cyar’ika’ each mumbled repetition punctuated with a kiss until it seemed to fill his very soul couldn’t stand against it, and Cody pulled away from the Jedi, curling in on himself as much as he could.

“I’ll hurt you. Eventually, I’ll slip back under, and I’ll kill you. Please, Quin.”

Quinlan shook his head, his jaw set in sly determination. “I can’t remove it. It’s too Dark for me to distinguish it from myself. But I know someone who can.

“You’re not a killer in the way you think you are, Cody. Obi-Wan is still alive. And he’s going to be so happy to see you.”

“Alive?” Cody felt as if the floor had fallen away beneath him, but he was still here, still in control. “He’s alive?”

Quinlan nodded, and Cody finally allowed himself to weep, pressing his face into the crook of Quinlan’s neck as the other man hugged him tightly, trying to hold his shattered pieces together for a while longer.

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

Destiny (RotJ AU oneshot)

“Thank the Force, you’re safe!”

Leia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she flung herself into Luke’s open arms, his face concealed by the darkness as the soft full moon rose like a halo behind his head. She breathed out a sigh, holding him close as she let the tension that had been bearing down on her go. The gnawing ball of anxiety at the pit of belly faded, as relief flooded her senses.

“We won,” she added in a rushed tone, barely able to believe her own words as she realized the freedom they had fought for was now within their grasp.

“We did,” said Luke, soft spoken as he returned his sister’s embrace; his prosthetic hand coming up to gently envelope the back of her thin neck. “But there is more that needs to be done.”

Leia shook her head, knowing he was right but refusing to let the long road still ahead of them spoil this moment of euphoria in the wake of their victory. With eyes closed, she smiled softly.

“Let’s not think of the future. The Death Star is destroyed. The Emperor is destroyed.”

Luke didn’t need to tell her, for her to know he had fulfilled the task of ridding the Galaxy of its dictator. She could feel the responsibility of the act weighing heavy on his conscience.

“He is,” her brother said either way, but Leia was surprised to find the words didn’t bring her the calm she had expected.

Instead, Luke’s tone seemed flat, solemn. It seemed uncanny, unnatural for him. Leia decided to dismiss it as nonsense. Instead, she focused on Luke’s arms around her, and the tender kiss he placed against her forehead. She had always known they belonged together, that there was a connection between them. 

It had taken some time for her to realize what exactly the bond was, but as soon as she realized she had fallen in love with Han, she knew Luke was the brother she’d always been missing. The brother she’d sometimes see in her dreams, a twin she’d never known. She had assumed her possible lost brother had died in the womb, that the ghost was a figment of her imagination. Now, she knew better.

Still, another question was begging to be answered. She felt the hatred and disgust well up inside her, before she even uttered the name on her mind. She sensed Luke’s reluctance to discuss it, knowing he heard her inquiry before she said it. Its taste bitter on her tongue.

“Is… where is Vader?”

“Our fath--”

“Your father,” Leia interrupted sharply, and she swore she could have heard Luke snort in annoyance if it weren’t so out of character for him to be intemperate. “Your father, my sire.”

“Father has changed. When we first spoke, I was afraid of his words. I was afraid of his intentions, of what he might do to me - and to you. But I’m not afraid anymore,” Luke said after a moment, but this time Leia didn’t imagine the cutting edge to his voice. “He asked me to relay a message. To you.”

“I want no part of his last wishes.”

“I know.”

Leia hated the tension that had formed between them, tainting the air and making it almost oppressive. She had no intentions of forgiving the man who had fathered her, who had stood dumbly by as her home planet and her adoptive - her real - parents were murdered. Her people turned to dust in the blink of an eye. Vader was nothing to her, and much as she knew Luke had been entertaining the idea of forming a bond with Vader as a parent, she had no such notions.

Biting her lip, Leia clung to Luke. For a moment, she feared he would back away. She feared he may be upset, despite the fact that she had never seen Luke be anything but calm and serene since he first became a Jedi Knight. She stroked his back, the rough fabric of his robes a familiar presence. Hiding her face against Luke’s chest, she shut any thoughts of Vader out but she was still hyper aware that Luke hadn’t confirmed whether the Dark Lord was dead or alive. 

In the distance, she could hear the chattering of ewoks mingling with Chewbacca’s cheerful yowls, and if she strained her ears she could make out Han’s gruff tone as he conversed with Lando over a glass of whatever the Ewok equivalent to liquor was called. They would be alright.

But when Luke spoke again, interrupting the pleasant background noises of celebration, the mournful aura he was emanating could not be ignored.

“That’s why I must be the one to do his bidding.”

“What are you talking about?” Leia said, tilting her head slightly upwards to attempt to catch his eyes.

Before she had the chance, the hand at the back of her neck guided her confounded face away as he pressed her tightly to her chest.

“I didn’t understand before, but now I do. The Emperor was seduced by the darkness inside of himself, not by the Force itself. The Force is neither light nor dark, you cannot know it if you do not walk the line between the contradictions.”

“I don’t understand.”

Leia wasn’t lying, Luke’s words made little sense but she couldn’t keep the tension from pouring back into her weary bones ever so slightly. Something was amiss, but she allowed Luke to squeeze her as she returned the embrace with the same fervour. It seemed desperate, as if Luke was stalling something inevitable, something momentous. Perhaps, she already knew where he was going. Perhaps they were both buying themselves more time.

“Father knows. About you,” Luke finally breathed, the admission of guilt filling Leia’s heart with dread and fear. “I tried, but I couldn’t keep it from him.” 

“You let him live.”

It wasn’t a question, and when Luke offered no reply, Leia knew it to be true. She dug her fingers into his back, but forced herself not to lash out. She wanted Vader dead, she wanted to see him suffer as a punishment for all the atrocities he had committed. As she struggled with the battle between her love for her brother and her disdain for her biological father, she could sense Luke’s sorrow growing in magnitude. It became palpable, until it overpowered even her vivacious, volatile emotional turmoil.

“You are too good, Luke,” she finally murmured, relenting for now despite the simmering disappointment and anger beneath the surface.

“Yes. I have been. And I remain to be, but it can be remedied.”

Leia flinched as the durasteel fingertips of her brother’s cybernetic hand dug into the side of her neck - a neck she became ever so aware of, reminded of its frailty. She reached out with that unknown, premonitory, invisible hand to search his feelings. She sensed no malice, only grief. She simply couldn’t grasp what he was mourning, or who, if Vader was still alive.

“There is so much more that I don’t yet understand, but I can learn. But so can you,” he continued, and shivers of unease ran down Leia’s spine at the spiteful way in which he brought her into the equation - so unlike the Luke she knew.

“I don’t want to learn about the Force,” she said, in an effort to reassure herself as much as Luke.

“No. Not now. But you will, eventually. It can’t be helped. Your potential will draw you towards it, as it did me. You can fight it, or embrace it as I have. It won’t matter, it takes you either way. You have no choice.”

“I don’t believe that,” Leia scoffed, the sinking feeling in her belly foreboding.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, nor does it matter what I believe. It’s the truth.”

The conviction of those words was irrefutable, and for a second Leia feared Luke could actually foresee the future and was speaking with an unearned wisdom regarding what was to pass. She found herself dreading the fact that there may be a predestined path for her.

“You sense it too, don’t you? You have felt its call, you have felt it beckoning to you. The Force.”

Leia wavered, about to reply when she remembered something she had overheard in the past. Luke communicating with an unseen figure, its voice eerily similar to the late Obi-Wan’s - its warning prodding at her subconscious until she had no choice but to reiterate it aloud.

“The Force doesn’t beckon. The Dark Side does.”

“But it has called you, hasn’t it?”

Luke didn’t falter, and Leia didn’t deny him. Her silence was all the compliance he needed, and she felt another chaste kiss pressed to the top of her head. Again, the durasteel prickle of his cold, harsh fingers buried themselves a little farther into the tender flesh of her nape.

“Then it has already been decided. Father was right. You are too much like him.”

Leia jerked back, trying to rear away as hurt, rage and disgust rushed to the surface in a flurry. Instead, she found herself trapped by Luke’s powerful hold. Heart sinking, she realized the dread she had been feeling wasn’t merely caused by Vader’s survival. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sounds came forth. She tried to yank her arms free, but the unseen hands keeping her firmly put were too strong. She wanted to scream, wanted to kick, and writhe, and punch, and claw her way out. Instead, she stood paralyzed as Luke’s fingers grew painfully tight around the back of her nape; tips pressing against her hammering pulse point.

“There can be only two; one master and one apprentice. You have an inherent rage. You would make the perfect Sith, but if you become Father’s apprentice…” Luke trailed off, and the meaning behind the unspoken intent was enough to suck the air out of Leia’s lungs.

Swallowing had, she found it difficult to breathe; and the vice closing around her neck was getting ever tighter. She could feel the sharp sting as unforgiving durasteel pierced her skin, and the rush of warmth that could only be blood spilling down the front of her dress. As her mind grew foggy, Leia realizing the welcoming darkness was likely of Luke’s doing to ease her into the eternal sleep, she picked up on his voice close to her ear. Despite the haze as life faded, her brother’s words were crisp and clear and haunting.

“This is the only way. It is my destiny,” he said, with an evident choked tremor to the delivery. “I’m sorry.”

Head tipping backwards, the last thing Leia noted was the irony in the lone tear that slid down Luke’s pale cheek juxtaposed with the predatory, greedy glow of his now bloodshot golden eyes.

***

Because there aren’t enough Dark!Luke AUs out there, so have my take on an alternate ending to RotJ where Luke falls and Vader lives. Enjoy!

[nicolemagolan]

Two Cities, One Galaxy: How Star Wars Connects And Divides Us

Early in 2019, I wrote a personal essay about Star Wars. It centered around SWCC (Star Wars Celebration Chicago) and my experience of watching the live stream in my living room at 4am, when the episode IX teaser and title was unveiled. 

It’s about fandom, the internet, and isolation. It’s about how Star Wars impacted my life, and about my relationship with my brother.

It also, eerily, foreshadows the disappointment I would eventually feel about The Rise of Skywalker. So here it is, under the cut. Please give it a read, and let me know your thoughts!

***

My phone blinks 3:30am, April 13th, 2019. In Chicago it’s 10:30am, yesterday. I should be asleep. I should stay present in Auckland, where no one else is awake except the moths gathering on the kitchen window.

My brother is slumped beside me, eyes closed, lost somewhere between sleep and boredom. We sit in the darkness of our living room, outlined by the grey glaze of the television. I’m wearing pyjama pants and yesterday’s T-shirt. An empty bag of chips is screwed up on the carpet, a half-drunk can of Lift Plus sits on the mantelpiece.

I stare at the TV. Waiting. My knee bobs up and down. I glance at my phone, and refresh Twitter. The tweets are coming in a blur: people yelling in caps lock, streaming without punctuation, some of it indecipherable, some of it from me. It’s happening kids / MERRY IXMAS, EVERYONE / I'm trying to remember it's called Star Wars Celebration not Star Wars oh my god I'm so stressed-ebration / I AM READY TO BE EPISODE IXed. The world around me is asleep, but the world under my thumb has never been more alive.

I take another sip of Lift Plus and feel its energy tingle through my bloodstream. Or maybe that sensation is the force.

When I was in class earlier in the day, wearing a Star Wars tee, writing in a Star Wars notebook and drinking from a Star Wars bottle, I was already stewing in anticipation. My mind was in another galaxy; speculation ran through me like shooting stars. My dedication to the Star Wars universe is fuelled not by the incessant marketing or the cheap merchandise, but by the passion I have for stories, space wizards, and the cute-yet-creepy alien bird race known as the Porgs.

 Star Wars Celebration Chicago is set to begin livestreaming on YouTube in just a few minutes. A countdown slowly ticks on screen. This will be the first big panel of Celebration, and the one I am most eager to see. The panel is for Star Wars: Episode IX, consisting of a Q&A session with cast members. Our first real, palpable look at the film, at beloved returning characters, and the new additions, to hear from returning Director J.J. Abrams what his vision for IX is.

But the real reason anyone is staying up all night to watch the livestream isn’t to see Abrams dodge spoilery questions. It’s to be amongst the first to witness the Episode IX trailer. The very first teaser trailer. Imagine a choir singing angelic sounds behind that one word and maybe you’ll begin to understand. What I really want is to catch a glimpse of the upcoming film, to learn the title—oh my goodness, the title—along with thousands of far, far away fans; some watching live in the dead of night or crack of dawn. The lucky few are crowded into the panel room itself. I swipe through pixelated and blurry selfies posted with #SWCC. It’s a big auditorium, packed with media, families, and cosplayers, and many are swinging lightsabers above the crowd’s heads. Purple, blue, green, and red beams of light. The stage itself is lit up with a bright blue backdrop.

 When I told my parents I was going to camp out in the living room to watch the livestream of Star Wars Celebration, they rolled their eyes. When I asked my brother if he wanted to join me, he cried, ‘Whyyy,’ before revealing his true colours when he showed up on the couch at 2am.

He was all too keen to eat my snacks, but now as time crawls forward, he seems to have come to the conclusion that it is ridiculous to stay up for something you can watch on your phone, from your bed, when you wake up. I have come to the conclusion that he is lying to himself. On the path to the dark side, perhaps.

He’s always joined me on my silly adventures, making fun of me along the way. But the fact that he’s willing to be there is enough, as he is now. Star Wars has been a part of his life as much as mine; we grew up roaring Chewbacca impressions and fighting with cardboard lightsabers; He’d be Darth Maul and I’d be Obi-Wan (so I got to chop him in half every time). Kids would tell me I was a weirdo for liking Star Wars, for playing with Barbies and Darth Vader figurines, blurring the lines between allocated girls’ or boys’ toys. But my brother and I knew: Star Wars is a fun space adventure for whoever wants to enjoy it.

We got older and the movies lost a touch of their magic: the internet revealed the intense hatred shovelled at the prequel trilogy. Little-me had loved the ridiculous Jar Jar Binks, but the middle-aged fans who grew up with the original trilogy saw him as an offence to their childhood obsession. (JUSTICE FOR JAR JAR is the hill I will die on.)

Then Disney bought Lucasfilm and ushered in a new era. I have a series of selfies from midnight premieres—me grinning from ear to ear, my brother with eyes closed and discontented frown (his go-to photo pose)—in the blurry light of the Imax screen on Queen Street. But one glance at his smiling face during the film and you know he loves this galaxy as much as the next fan.

Sometimes that’s the problem: our love for this story is so great and so ingrained, that it can bubble over into endless online debates. Debates become heated, become personal, become hateful. In this era of social media, everyone has a voice, but the ones who spit poison are the loudest. We struggle to find common ground sometimes. But it’s always there, beneath out feet and on our TV screens. We love Star Wars. We love to watch it, re-enact it, dissect it, wear it, read it, and write about it. Whether the common ground we stand on looks like the sands of Tatooine or the lake country of Naboo, it’s all the same galaxy. Even though the galaxy-shattering film The Last Jedi threatened to destroy us, we can find a way to stand together. Because when the fans unite, at movie premieres, or conventions, the fandom can become something worth celebrating.

Like today, right now, 3:59am in my living room.

I look up from my phone. The countdown reaches zero. I hold my breath. A soft echo of music trickles through the speakers, and John Williams’ familiar score wraps around me like a blanket. Goose bumps pop up on my skin.

The Star Wars logo vanishes and the screen cuts to black. I snap up and nudge my sleeping brother’s arm with my toe. He jolts awake, looks at the black screen and scowls.

‘Nothing’s hap—’

He’s cut off by a roaring applause as the blue-lit panel stage lights up the screen. The room around me fades. I’m in Auckland with my brain fuzzy, and I’m transported to Chicago with heart thumping.

My brother jumps up and stands in front of the screen. ‘I’m going to the bathroom.’

I babble, ‘butthepanelisabouttostart,’ craning my neck around his legs.

‘Oh well,’ he says. He walks off.

Stephen Colbert is pacing around the stage, babbling on about Dagobah and S-foils, trying to work the crowd up—unnecessary, since we are all waiting for the cast and crew.

I’m leaning forward, straining my eyes, and wondering if anyone actually finds his ‘jokes’ funny. Twitter tells me, yes, they do. The excitement level is high, making everything fresh and exciting, even if it’s a Star Wars pun heard years ago. I almost feel like I could twist my neck and hear people whispering behind me, instead of tweeting alongside me.

 The closest thing to this feeling in my own city is Armageddon Expo, the annual convention at the ASB Showgrounds in Greenlane. Nerds I’ve never met become my best friends. We jam the halls like squashed-up skittles. I don’t know their names but I know who they are. When I’m dressed in Rey’s dusty scavenger outfit, with staff in hand and hair bunched in three bobbles, young girls point and giggle. I wave at them, their eyes wide with wonder, and my heart is full.

The internet fandom space is a mix of tweet-before-thinking garbage and fun bite-sized meta. The real-world fandom spaces, such as Armageddon, are a big geeky party; no one hiding behind an anonymous wall, and no one left out.

This livestream is somewhere in between. I am connected online from where I sit in Auckland. Reading tweets and writing tweets and liking gifs. Yet I am in Chicago, oblivious to the sleeping city around me.

Stephen Colbert brings out Director J.J. Abrams and head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, and the content we’re all waiting for finally begins. I take in every detail, every non-answer. I enjoy it. I loathe it. Stephen Colbert asks unanswerable questions, like the fate of Daisy Ridley’s character, or how the relationships develop. No word is uttered more than ‘spoilers’.

The cast members are introduced onto the stage; first is Anthony Daniels who plays C-3PO—one of the remaining few original cast members from 1977. He waves hello to the crowd before looking for the cameras. In his charming British accent, he says, ‘On tweets today people were, all over the world, saying “wish I could be here”. And I know we’re on camera, so I don’t know where the camera is, but whoever is in Australia or…’ He pauses for a flicker of a second, ‘…all the other countries around the planet; I wanna give you a big wave, and you are here in spirit. Okay?’

I grin a little wider. Of course he would mention our neighbour, Australia. So close, and yet so far.

 In New Zealand, despite the growing connections through social media, I feel isolated. Even in the vast Auckland city, where I easily get lost in the busy roads and busy people. New Zealand is separate. And that’s part of what makes it special.

But the isolation is also part of what makes being part the Star Wars fandom special.

It’s a larger world. Out there in space; out there in the world wide web. Legendary or anonymous, you can be a part of something. You can tell your story; you can make one up. After movie premieres, there is a sense of privilege and power in that none of my fellow fans in America have yet seen the movie. The Last Jedi came here a few days early, and I knew all the things before anyone else. We were isolated again. And it felt so good.

Did I go and post spoilers? No, because I’m not an asshole (you know who you are). But I told people they’re gonna love it. I told them the film is exciting and unexpected and dabbles deliciously in subtext in a way that’s fresh for Star Wars. I sign off with eagerness for the upcoming dissection and discussion of the film.

 The next day I’m shocked to learn that many many many people felt it was a ‘betrayal’ of Star Wars. A disaster of a movie. A cluttered mess of a story, an anti-climactic sequel that instead of building on what came before, tore the past to shreds. My brother is one of them.

And the fandom split in two.

But not today. Not tonight. I refuse, and so does everyone on my Twitter feed, because we’re tired of defending Rey, who is not a Mary Sue; and Vice Admiral Holdo, whose purple hair does not make her a lesser fighter; and Rose Tico, who fell victim to dude-bros saying she’s the worst character ever, she ruined their childhood, and Asians don’t belong in Star Wars; until eventually the actress, Kelly Marie Tran, deleted all her social media.

When Kelly walks onto the panel stage, she gets a standing ovation. There are tears in her eyes, and there are tears in mine.

 They introduce the new cast members, and display behind the scenes photos, and babble on about the brilliant practical effects. There’s a touching tribute to Carrie Fisher, an awkward bit about Adam Driver’s chest, and the introduction of new droid D-O. When the duck-inspired droid rolls onto the stage, you can hear cash registers ring.

My brother comes back in the room as the panel is winding up. He flops into the chair and sighs. ‘So, did I miss anything?’

‘You missed everything.’

‘So I didn’t miss anything then,’ he smirks.

Stephen Colbert asks J.J. Abrams if there’s anything he wants to leave with the fans. I lean forward. ‘This is it,’ I screech.

This is it. It boils down to this simple, repeated moment in time: the day, or night, or very-early-morning that a Star Wars trailer is about to debut. I am alone, and yet so very not alone, united in a nerdy passion that doesn’t call for such depth of devotion. But here we all are. Here I am. And here’s Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (omg).

 I switch off the TV. The darkness eats my eyeballs.

‘How am I supposed to sleep after that!?’ I yell. ‘Palpatine. Freaking Pal-pa-tine! NO! YES! Why?!’

Silence.

My brother is asleep.

I throw a pillow at him. ‘DUDE! Palpatine is back!’

He mumbles, ‘Haha, lame.’ His eyes don’t open.

I slide down the couch until I hit the hard floor. The Rise of Skywalker. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. I sit there in the lonely living room, and let my thoughts trail off into the dark.

[swinfinities]

Long Live the Queen: Part Ten

The first thing Luke noticed when he stepped off the ship was the smell. The next thing he noticed was the mud, which swallowed his boots whole with a sickening squelch.

“I think… I think I’m stuck,” Luke said, struggling in vain to pull his feet free.

Old Ben just chuckled, wading his way through the slime towards Luke. The old Jedi’s robes were already caked with a fresh layer of mud. Luke could have sworn that actual moss had started growing in a few places in the man’s grey beard and wondered to himself if the planet truly wasn’t trying to eat them.

“Up you go,” Ben said, grabbing Luke under the arms and plucking him out of the mud and dropping him on his shoulders.

“We’ve got a little bit of a hike ahead of us,” said Ben, starting to walk forward through the overgrown swamp. “Are you up to it?”

“Sure,” Luke replied. “Where are we going?”

“We’re going to see a man named Yoda.”

Luke snickered.

“What’s so funny up there?” Ben asked.

“Yoda,” Luke replied. “That’s a funny name.”

Ben laughed with him this time.

“Yes… I suppose it is.”

“Is he a Jedi, too?”

“Yes, he is,” Ben replied. “One of the greatest who ever lived. And the wisest being I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He is going to teach you the ways of the Force, and train you to be a Jedi, just like he trained me, many years ago.”

“Okay. So I get to learn how to lift rocks with my mind and stuff?”

“Being a Jedi is much more than lifting rocks, Luke. It requires commitment of the highest order. You will need to have a strong mind and an even stronger will. You must learn to listen to the Force, learn to interpret its instructions. Only then will you find balance within yourself.”

“Okay… so when do I learn to use the lightsaber?”

Ben laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I can already tell that Yoda and I will certainly have our work cut out for us.”

*****

The little hut, made out little more than mud and sticks, wasn’t exactly the sort of dwelling Luke would have pictured a Jedi Master to be living in. When his mother used to tell him bedtime stories about the Jedi, they always included a description of the grand Jedi Temple of Coruscant, with its gleaming halls and towers. None of the stories included nearly this much mud and certainly didn’t involve any wrinkly, green goblins that hobbled about on canes.

“Young Skywalker…” the short, green-skinned creature said as he stepped out of his home. His long, pointed ears perked up as the thing made what Luke assumed was his species’ version of a smile.

“A long time for this moment, have I waited. But first, young Skywalker, I am wondering, why are you here?”

“Because Ben brought me here, I guess—”

Luke started to say, but the green Jedi knocked him on the forehead with the end of his cane before he could finish.

“Wrong!” Yoda exclaimed. “Wrong! Heh heh!”

The old alien tapped his cane on the ground as he chuckled to himself.

“Brought you here, Obi-wan did not,” Yoda continued. “Again, I ask: why are you here?”

Luke sighed and rubbed the sore spot on his head.

“I am here because I want to be a Jedi,” he replied.

“Hmm…” Yoda said, stroking his chin with three stubby fingers. He stared at Luke, squinting slightly as if he weren’t looking directly at him, but past him, or somehow through him. “Nearly correct, you are. In time, the truth we will uncover. But first, we must eat! Come, eat!”

Yoda laughed again and then hobbled back toward the entrance to his hut, stopping for a moment to smile and wave for Luke and Ben to follow, and then disappeared through the round, muddy door.

Luke looked back at Ben, giving him a confused glance.

“It’s alright, Luke. Even a Jedi master must eat his supper. Come. I am sure you are hungry from our long journey.”

As it was, Luke was indeed very hungry. Just not for… whatever it was that Yoda poured into his bowl. Still, trying to be polite, Luke sat down next to the slab of stone that served as a table and took a bite. The soup was thick and oily and tasted like no meat or vegetable he had ever eaten. But at least it was warm, and his empty stomach was so desperate for food that he didn’t care so much how it tasted. He even went back for a second helping.

“Mmm, good food, good food,” Yoda would occasionally squawk as they ate. Obi-wan, however, sat still and silent, crouched under the low ceiling in a dark corner of the hut, buried in his own thoughts.

When Yoda had finished eating, he sat back and let out a long, contented sigh, rubbing his full belly.

“Master Yoda, I must tell you why we are here,” said Obi-wan, breaking his silence at last. “It would appear that—”

Yoda lifted a hand to stop him.

“From the boy, I wish to hear it,” he said, turning back to Luke. “Again I ask, why are you here?”

“I… I  already told you, master,” said Luke, confused as to why the question was being asked, but perhaps even more confused as to why he didn’t know the answer. Why was he here? To become a Jedi? Because his mother had sent him? Or was it something deeper? Luke suddenly remembered something his mother had told him, only a few years ago. They had taken a short trip to Anchorhead to buy some supplies. Luke noticed a building draped in bright, crimson flags and surrounded by soldiers in white armor. At first, Luke was excited. They looked like the same soldiers he and his friends would watch in the holo-dramas. But Padmé had pulled him aside and said: “Those flags and the Empire they represent are a symbol of evil, Luke. A very wicked man is in charge of the Empire. He wants nothing more than to hurt others.”

“Why doesn’t somebody stop him?” Luke had asked.

“Without the Jedi, it is hard to fight against someone so powerful. But even though the Jedi are gone, Luke, hope is not gone from the galaxy. That is something the Emperor can never destroy. That is what your father believed, and I believe it, too. If your father were still here, he would never stop fighting against evil. I know that because he never stopped fighting it during the Clone War. Someday, when you are old enough to join the fight, I hope you will remember him. I could never be happier if you grew up to be just like your father.”

Luke pulled his mind back from Tatooine and to the small, cozy hut where he sat.

“I’m here… because of my father, I guess,” Luke told Yoda.

“Guided you here, the Force has,” said Yoda, finally nodding in approval at the boy’s answer. “And trust in the Force, we shall. What know you of your father, young Skywalker?”

“Not much…” Luke said, trying to remember all he could. “I know he was a Jedi. One of the best Jedi that ever was. Or at least that’s what mom always said.”

Luke noticed Ben’s eyes shift down toward the floor. An even more sunken mood settled over his face.

“Always noble, and never cowardly,” Luke continued. “That’s what mom always used to say about him. And even in the middle of a war, he never forgot to be kind. My mom always said I will grow up to be just like him.”

“Mmm… powerful Jedi was he,” said Yoda. “Powerful Jedi.”

“You knew him?” asked Luke.

Yoda nodded. “For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. Watched them rise, I did. Watched them fall, also.”

“Master Yoda,” Obi-wan chimed in. “Do you believe it is time? Is it time to make our move against the Empire? Is Luke to be trained?”

Yoda closed his eyes. For a moment, he seemed to leave his body, his mind drifting to some higher plane while his physical form was left nothing but an empty shell. As silently he had left, his mind drifted back and he opened his eyes.

“Impossible to see,” said Yoda. “Always in motion, the future is.”

“If we are going to act, we must act quickly,” Ben said. “Master Yoda, I’ve learned a terrible truth. Darth Vader survived.”

It was Yoda’s turn now to look downcast.

“Know this, I do,” he replied.

“You mean you knew?” Obi-wan asked.

“Sensed him, have I. A wound in the Force, has your old apprentice become.”

“I don’t understand,” said Luke. “Who is Darth Vader?”

Ben and Yoda shared a knowing look, but Luke couldn’t guess at what it was about. Yoda shook his head softly.

“Darth Vader was a Jedi knight, once,” Ben explained. “And a pupil of mine before he turned to evil. He helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights. He betrayed and murdered your father.”

[tomeandflickcorner]

Star Wars: Episode 5- The Empire Strikes Back

While it could be argued that A New Hope was a basic mythical style adventure set in a futuristic environment, the first sequel really seemed to up the ante quite a bit, with the stakes becoming much higher.  And while that potentially icky love triangle was still more or less present, it did start to lean more strongly into one direction.

Even though it’s not directly stated in the movie, three years have passed since the Death Star was destroyed.  But because Darth Vader survived to tell the rest of the Empire about its location, the Rebel Base on Yaven 4 had to be abandoned.  As the text crawl informs us, the Empire have been chasing down the Rebels across the galaxy ever since then, forcing our heroes to constantly be on the move.

At the start of this movie, the Rebel Base is currently located on Hoth, a planet that’s constantly covered with ice and snow. I do wonder how Luke managed to settle into such a cold environment, as he’d spent his entire life on a desert planet. But while it’s never established how long they’ve been stationed on Hoth, I guess he might have had time to adjust to the drastically different climate.

Anyway, the movie opens with Han and Luke, who are surveying the area surrounding the Hoth base, searching for any signs of life only to find nothing. After setting up a few scanners to continue searching for any lifeforms, Han heads back to the base.  But Luke opts to take the scenic route back, as he’d witnessed what he believes to be a meteorite hitting the ground a short distance away.  Unbeknownst to him, the ‘meteorite’ is actually one of the Probe Droids that Darth Vader has been sending out to locate the Rebels, on account of the fact that he’s now searching for Luke.  There’s something I have to say about that, but I’ll hold off on that for now.

Before Luke can actually go investigate the site where the Probe Droid landed, the Tauntaun (a bipedal lizard-goat creature) he was riding starts to freak out.  Seconds later, Luke is attacked by a giant yeti-like creature called a Wampa, resulting in Luke getting knocked out.  I wonder why Luke’s Tauntaun didn’t smell the Wampa until he was right on top of them.  Also, wasn’t it just mentioned that Luke and Han were specifically looking for any signs of life?  So why didn’t their sensors detect the Wampa’s approach?  Were they just looking for signs of human life?  I guess that would make sense, as the Rebels already knew there was some form of life on Hoth.  After all, they had managed to domesticate a team of Tauntauns, which were native to the icy planet.

Back at the Rebel Base, we see Chewbacca in the middle of performing repairs to the Millennium Falcon, which was apparently damaged in a previous battle that occurred off-camera.  When Han returns from his scouting mission, he promises to give Chewbacca a hand in a moment.  But first, he approaches General Rieekan to give his report on how he didn’t pick up any life signs during his scouting mission.  Han then announces that he’s planning on leaving Hoth and can no longer stay and assist the Rebel Alliance, on account of the fact that Jabba the Hutt is now out for his blood.  It turns out that Han never used the money he’d gotten for helping to rescue Leia in A New Hope to pay back his debt to Jabba.  So he’s going to have to get that taken care of ASAP or Jabba will start sending bounty hunters after him.  Apparently, Han’s already had a run-in with one such bounty hunter on a planet called Ord Mantell, during an adventure that I think was explored in one of the Star Wars novels I never read, and he doesn’t want to push his luck any further. General Rieekan expresses his sorrow to see Han leave, but wishes him the best.

However, Leia, who had been within earshot of this conversation, doesn’t take the news as well.  Instead, she all but runs after him, trying to convince him to stay, stating that the Rebel Alliance needs him, as he’s proven himself to be a true asset. But Han isn’t swayed and starts to challenge Leia, telling her to just come out and admit the real reason why she wants him to stay.

Yeah, this movie really puts the petal to the metal in regards to a potential romance between Han and Leia.  Han is convinced that Leia had developed genuine feelings for him during the past three years, but it constantly discouraged that she won’t allow herself to admit it, even to herself.  While I suppose it could be argued that Han is coming on too strongly, I have to disagree.  But to explain why, I’m going to go off on a brief tangent, so you’ll have to forgive me for that.

The way I see it, the whole relationship between Han and Leia has what Anakin/Padmé lacked.  Yes, there’s a bigger age gap between Han and Leia then the one that existed between Anakin and Padmé, but my main issue with Anakin/Padmé had nothing to do with their ages.  (Not really.) With Han and Leia, they’ve pretty much spent the past three years getting to know one another.   It wasn’t as if their interactions in this move were the first time they’d seen each other since the end of A New Hope.  No, they’ve had three years of shared adventures and experiences under their belts.  In addition, while I never got what Padmé ever saw in Anakin, I can see exactly what would draw Leia and Han to one other. With Han, he was a complete loner when we first met him.  He was completely used to calling all the shots and felt he could only count on himself (and maybe his best friend, Chewbacca.)  All of a sudden, here’s this young woman who might look fragile and delicate, but has both bark and bite.  Someone who can clearly hold her own in a fight, and most importantly, isn’t afraid to challenge him and put him in his place.  Chances are, Leia seriously impressed Han without even trying.  As for Leia, think about what her life might have been like before meeting Han.   To everyone around her, she was the daughter of a respected senator and his wife. She probably spent her whole childhood having to live up to everyone’s expectations by following Bail Organa’s example.  Especially in regards to their secret connection to the Rebel Alliance.  Simply put, Leia most likely spent her entire childhood being molded into a great leader.  And when Bail Organa died when Alderaan was destroyed, everyone must have immediately turned to her, expecting her to take over her adoptive father’s role. After all, Bail was one of the founding leaders in the Rebel Alliance.  Imagine how it must have been to have so many people turning to you for guidance when you’re only 19.  You can’t even take the time to properly mourn for your home planet, or the people you considered your parents.  Now, all of a sudden, here comes Han.  And unlike everyone else, he doesn’t humbly defer to you.  He actually talks back to you and isn’t afraid to argue with you. Simply put, Han is probably the first person Leia has met who doesn’t treat her like royalty or an esteemed leader. He treats her like an actual person. I imagine that is both confusing and refreshing for her at the same time.

So that’s why I don’t think Han is out of line when he challenges Leia to just come out and admit that she has feelings for him.   Because Leia is just so accustomed to putting the needs of the Rebellion before her own, she is in danger of becoming incapable of basic human emotion.  Han probably knows that’s no way to live. And I have to say I agree with him. For starters, what would Leia do once the war ended if she hadn’t learned to let herself let go and focus on herself once in a while? Han probably knows that Leia would be a lot happier in the long run if she stopped making the needs of the Rebellion her only priority.  (This is made even clearer in a deleted scene.)  So of course he’s going to be blunt in his attempts at getting her to open up.

On a side note, I do have to chuckle a bit in regards to those random Rebels who are walking by during Han and Leia’s confrontation in the hallway.  They don’t even stop and look back at these two arguing.  It makes you wonder how often this sort of thing happened during the three year time jump.  By this point, the other Rebels are probably just shaking their heads every time they see Han and Leia fighting.  There might even be secret bets going on over how long it’s going to be before those two just get a room together.

Either way, Han and Leia’s most recent spat has to be put on hold when word gets around that Luke hadn’t returned to the Hoth Base.  When he finds out about this, Han is greatly concerned for his friends, as night is approaching and nights on Hoth are dangerously cold.  In order to find him, Han decides to set off on his own, despite the warnings from the other Rebels about the rapidly dropping temperatures outside.  As such, he heads off on a Tauntaun to begin searching for Luke.  And after an hour or two goes by with no sign of either Han or Luke returning, Leia has no choice but to give the order for the shield doors to be closed until morning.  This is a rather hard-hitting scene, as we can appreciate how difficult this situation must be.  Leia knows that the chances of Luke and Han surviving for the night out on the frigidly cold planet are very slim, but she knows she can’t risk a search party until morning, or put everyone in danger by leaving the doors open overnight.

Meanwhile, Luke has woken up within the Wampa’s cave, where the Wampa was busy devouring Luke’s Tauntaun.  He manages to escape with the aid of the lightsaber Obi-Wan had given him in A New Hope.  It had apparently fallen off his belt when the Wampa hung him up from the roof of the cave.  Which was really convenient.  What if it had fallen off when Luke was being dragged through the snow on the way back to the cave?  Regardless, Luke manages to free himself from the ice cave, even wounding the Wampa when he attacks.  (By the way, when did Luke learn that trick with summoning the lightsaber into his hand? I don’t remember Obi-Wan getting to that particular lesson before he died.)  But Luke then proceeds to run out of the cave and out into the night. While this might seem like a bad idea in hindsight, I can understand it, as Luke was in a high stress situation at the moment, and he had very little time to come up with a good plan.  And he probably had no idea how far he was from the Hoth Base.  Nevertheless, he begins trying to make his way back to the base, but eventually, the dropping temperatures prove to be too much for him and he collapses from the cold and exhaustion.

At that moment, Obi-Wan’s Force Ghost appears before Luke.  Obi-Wan instructs Luke to travel to Dagobah and seek out Yoda, who will continue Luke’s Jedi training.  Okay, two things.  First, Obi-Wan claims that Yoda was the one who instructed him.  This is a pretty big retcon, as it completely ignores the fact that the prequels told us Obi-Wan’s master was Qui-Gon.  But I guess this could refer to the fact that Yoda instructed Obi-Wan on the ways of Force Ghosts.  Second, why is Obi-Wan waiting until now to send Luke to find Yoda? It’s been three years, after all. Why wait until Luke was dying of hypothermia?  What if Luke hadn’t made it out of his predicament?  That would put a damper on the plan to have Yoda continue Luke’s training. Then again, I guess it’s possible Obi-Wan knew that Luke would soon be saved, because Han appears on the scene seconds later.  After making sure that his friend is still alive, Han, in an attempt to help warm Luke up, deposits him inside the body of the Tauntaun, who chose that moment to die from the bitter cold.

We then cut to morning, when a small Rebel shuttle is deployed to search for Han and Luke.  And what’s the name of this Rebel shuttle?  Rouge Two.  That name is rather bittersweet when you know the story of Rouge One.  Although, it does present the question of what this particular pilot did to earn the name of Rouge Two. Given what happened with Rouge One, being called Rouge Two is probably a huge honor.  Either way, the Rouge Two pilot manages to find Han and Luke when Han is able to radio up to him.  Not that I’m complaining, but I do wonder how Han managed to survive the night. I doubt there was enough room for him in that dead Tauntaun, too.  Granted Han mentioned to the delirious Luke that he was getting a shelter put together, but what was he using to make that shelter?  And how did he manage to keep himself warm through the night?

Anyway, Han and Luke are both brought back to the Rebel base, where Luke is immediately given medical attention.  Under the care of the Medical Droids, he soon recovers from his hyperthermia, as well as the injuries he received from the Wampa attack. (I’ve heard people say the Wampa attack was written in to explain the facial scars Mark Hamill got from his real life car accident, but I’m not sure if this is true or not.)  As Luke is recovering from his ordeal, Han, Leia, Chewbacca 3PO and R2 all come to check up on him.  During this scene, Han pretty much continues the earlier ‘argument’ he got into with Leia, stating that he thinks General Rieekan’s decision that it would be dangerous for any ships to leave Hoth at the moment was just an excuse, and that Leia really just didn’t want him to leave.  This assumption exasperates Leia who, in what I think was an attempt to knock Han down a few pegs, kisses Luke on the mouth.  Which is REALLY gross when you know that those two are brother and sister.  George Lucas did know about that plot point when he made this movie, didn’t he?  Or did he just plan on Luke having a twin sister and hadn’t yet decided on having Leia be the long-lost sister?  If it’s the latter, then it probably would have been smart to have included more female characters into the story.  You know, so there would be other candidates who could have been the sister?

But there’s no time to really dwell on that, because the overall plot kicks in again at this point.  The Imperial Probe Droid that Luke had mistook for a meteorite earlier in the film has taken notice of the Rebel base’s exterior and has begun sending a transmission back to the Empire, notifying them about it.  While one of the Imperial Officers was ready to dismiss it as just being a smuggler settlement, Vader’s Force Senses enabled him to realize that it was indeed the Rebel Base they were looking for. Thankfully, the Rebel Alliance’s radio contact team managed to intercept the Probe Droid’s transmission, which puts them on high alert, especially when 3PO, who was in the room at the time, informs them that the signal they intercepted was most likely an Imperial code.  Their suspicions are confirmed when Han and Chewbacca head back out to investigate and determine the existence of the Probe Droid.  While the Probe Droid activates a self-destruct mechanism when he’s tipped off that the Rebels have spotted him, the Rebels realize it might be too late, and that the Droid had already informed the Empire that the Rebel Base was on Hoth.   Their fears are proved to be well founded when an armada of Imperial ships appear on their radar.  As such, they begin the excavation, with a fully-recovered Luke joining the team of Rebel pilots charged with fighting against the approaching AT-AT Walkers in order to give the others the chance to evacuate.

As such, we enter into the first action sequence, with the X-Wings fighting the AT-AT Walkers while the rest of the Rebels evacuate in transports, with the transports leaving two to three ships at a time.  Although, as much as I love the design of the AT-AT Walkers, I do question the practicality of utilizing them in the attack on the Hoth Base.   I get that the Imperial armada managed to drop them off on the planet surface so the Imperials and Stormtroopers wouldn’t have to traipse across the snowy surface of the planet, but wouldn’t ordinary tanks have been more practical?  Either way, the attack on the Hoth Base begins.  While Luke and the other pilots manage to take out all the AT-AT Walkers (even though Luke’s rear gunner is killed in the process), the Imperial forces still manage to infiltrate the Rebel Base, prompting Leia to order a full-scale evacuation.  Even so, Han, whose departure was delayed by him and Chewbacca having a prolonged difficulty in finishing their repairs to the Millennium Falcon, has to nearly drag Leia out of the control room to get her to her transport.  Because Leia had apparently refused to leave before the other Rebels had a chance to get away.  However, on the way to her evacuation transport, the attack on the surface of the planet causes one of the tunnels to cave in, blocking Han and Leia’s path. As such, Han has no choice other than to get Leia off the planet on the Falcon, with 3PO tagging along.  Because this movie kinda sets up the status quo that 3PO predominantly accompanies Leia while R2 is mostly seen with Luke.  Kinda ironic as this is more or less the same setup that occurred with Luke and Leia’s parents.  The female gets 3PO and the job as senator/political leader and the male gets R2, along with the position of skilled pilot and Jedi. (And yes, I can see how this can come off as rather sexist, but I’d rather not go into that at the moment.)

As for Luke, after he’s finished taking out the AT-AT Walkers and then gets the evacuation order, he declines from following the rest of the fleet to their designated rendezvous point.   Instead, he decides to reroute his X-Wing to venture to Dagobah and locate Yoda, as Obi-Wan’s Force Ghost had decreed.  And it’s at this point the movie splits off into two separate subplots.  While Luke’s subplot involves his journey to Dagobah and his training under Yoda, we’re also following Han, Leia, Chewbacca and 3PO as they try to evade the Imperial fleet that end up tailing them when they attempt to escape Hoth.

Admittedly, the fact that the Imperials are so focused on the Millennium Falcon is a bit head scratching.  Because the opening text crawl makes it seem as if Vader is aiming to track down Luke.  So why would he go after the Millennium Falcon?  I suppose it’s possible that he might think Luke was on that ship, as he probably remembered seeing it during the Battle of the Death Star and concluded that Han and Luke were friends.  But wouldn’t his Force Senses have tipped him off that Luke was not on board?

Then again, it becomes clear later on that Vader hadn’t yet figured out that Luke was his long-lost son until he is personally contacted by Emperor Palpatine at a later point in the movie.  But this does make it a bit more confusing.  Why would Vader be apparently so interested in Luke if he hadn’t already suspected that Luke was his son?  Was it just that he was intrigued by the young man on account of how he sensed Luke’s strong Force Sensitivity during the Battle of the Death Star?  Also, in the scene when Emperor Palpatine is telling Vader that he suspects that Luke is Vader’s son, it’s rather weird how he and Vader are talking about how Luke is the son of Anakin Skywalker, as if Anakin and Vader weren’t the same person. Cinematically, I understand why they had to do that, as nobody was supposed to know that Vader was Anakin at this point in the movie, but once you do know about that particular twist, it just makes the dialogue really odd.  Either way, Emperor Palpatine’s master plan is to capture Luke and force him into turning to the Dark Side, thereby turning Luke into a Sith Lord like him and Vader. Which is slightly odd, as it was established in Phantom Menace that there could only be two Sith Lords at any given time- a Master and an Apprentice.  So, if their plan is to turn Luke into a Sith Lord, doesn’t that mean that they both know either Vader or Palpatiene will have to get killed off?  I suppose it’s possible that the Emperor plans to kill off Vader in favor of Luke and that Vader thinks he can overthrow Emperor Palpatine and take over as Luke’s master, but even so.

Anyway, in the Millennium Falcon crew subplot, Han quickly discovers that the ships’ hyperdrive unit was somehow damaged as well, which prevents them from making the jump to lightspeed. (Seriously, how was the Millennium Falcon damaged?  They’ve been trying to repair it throughout the entire movie so far.)  So Han has to quickly scramble to repair the hyperdrive on the double so they could get away from a pair of Star Destroyers.  But before he could make much progress, they find themselves in another spot of trouble.  Because the Imperial ships have chased them right into the path of an asteroid field.  In a desperate attempt at escaping their pursuers, Han decides to fly into the asteroid field, stating the Imperial ships would be crazy to follow them. Despite 3PO’s pessimistic outlook on their chances of successfully navigating through an asteroid field, Han manages to dodge the asteroids before deciding to land on a particularly large asteroid.  (Yeah, just try to tell me that Han doesn’t have some degree of Force Sensitivity. 3PO had just stated it was almost impossible to navigate through an asteroid field.  And Han managed to do so in a ship that Spaceballs not only compared to a Winnebago, but one that was apparently already heavily damaged.)  The Millennium Falcon ends up taking refuge inside a rocky cavern inside the asteroid. There, they hope to evade detection from the Empire so they can finish the repairs to the ship.

It’s during this ship repair scene that 3PO is actually somewhat useful for once.  Being a Droid, he can plug himself into the ship’s computer and get a full system’s diagnosis in order to determine what exactly needs to be fixed within the hyperdrive mechanism.  While it’s made somewhat clear that he isn’t quite as adept in this area as R2, since Protocol Droids were not designed for this sort of thing, he still shows a willingness to do his best.  And yes, there is one moment when 3PO comments on how the Millennium Falcon’s computer has a peculiar dialect.  While I doubt George Lucas and his staff had thought up L3 at this point in the franchise, I still appreciate that line now, as it’s a reminder that L3 lives on in some form.  Although, that does lead to the question as to whether or not the Millennium Falcon can be considered somewhat sentient.

However, because the ship is essentially dry-docked until further notice, this means Han and Leia are forced to closely interact with one another.  Which, in typical romance novel fashion, leads to them sharing a rather well-timed kiss. While it isn’t outwardly stated, it does become clear that Han’s earlier assumptions that Leia had developed feelings for him wasn’t too off the mark, and that her outward hostility towards him was pretty much just the result of her trying to deny her feelings.  It’s possible that her upbringing in being constantly looked to as a leader led her to believe that, if she ever did look for a romantic partner, it should be someone respectable.  Almost like a modern-day prince.  And Han clearly comes across as the exact opposite of a suitable match.  That’s probably why she was so determined to push him away.  Because she knows that’s not the sort of man she’s supposed to end up with.  Nevertheless, she is still drawn to him and doesn’t pull away when he moves in to kiss her. In fact, the extended version of the scene shows she even instigates another kiss when Han pulls away. However, the moment is spoiled when 3PO barges in, completely ignorant to what he’d just walked in on.  With the spell broken, Leia quickly retreats to try and deal with her conflicting feelings, as she’s now probably feeling even more torn between what she wants and what’s expected of her.

While Leia is off reflecting on things, she spots something flying past the cockpit windows.  When one of the flying creatures initiates the closest thing this movie has to a jumpscare, a startled Leia hurries off to inform Han of what she saw. Instantly on the alert, Han steps outside the ship with Chewbacca and Leia accompanying him.  As a result, the three of them discover the flying creatures are a group of Mynocks, which I guess are like space lampreys with wings. When a whole flock of them appear, Han starts shooting at them, but that, for some reason, causes a tremor in the cave.  That’s when Han starts to figure out that things aren’t what they appear to be, and he ends up shooting at the ground to test his theory.  Simply put, they didn’t land the Millennium Falcon inside a cave, but in the gullet of a space slug.  (So, there are Mynocks living inside the mouth of a space slug?  What kind of weird symbiotic relationship is this?)

In any event, now that Han has figured out that they’re inside the gullet of a space slug, he hurries Leia and Chewbacca back inside the ship, taking off on the double.  They manage to fly out of the space slug’s moth in the nick of time. However, this once again gets them back into the situation they were before, with the Imperial fleet chasing them. And because the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive still isn’t working, they’re pretty much sitting ducks. Thankfully, Han once again gets a brilliant idea.  His plan involves pretending to charge at the lead Star Destroyer and then land on the top of the ship.  This apparently enables the Millennium Falcon to avoid being detected by the Star Destroyer’s radar, as the signal from their ship blends into the Star Destroyer. This plan ends up working like a charm, although it did result in the death of Imperial Captain Needa, whom Vader held personally responsible for losing the Millennium Falcon.

While they’re tethered to the side of the Star Destroyer, Han announces to Leia the next stage of his plan.  Utilizing his knowledge of Imperial procedure, which we now know he’d gained from the time he’d spent enrolled in the Imperial academy, he plans to take advantage of the fact that Star Destroyers typically empty their garbage compartments before jumping to lightspeed.  Han plans to blend in with the debris and wait until the Star Destroyers leave.  After that, they’ll be free to head off without any further trouble.  The only issue is that they’ll need to find a safe port to finish the repairs on the Millennium Falcon.  When they start scanning the records of nearby planets, Han notices that his old acquaintance, Lando, is in the vicinity, on a planet called Bespin.  The planet’s records indicate Lando now owns a tibanna gas mine there.  Han decides that, even though Bespin is a bit of a distance from their current location, their best bet is to head there, because while Lando can’t exactly be trusted, he knows the man is no friend to the Empire. And so, once the Star Destroyers jump to lightspeed after jettisoning their garbage into space, just as Han predicted, the Millennium Falcon begins the journey to Bespin.  Although, while I’m not sure when this addition was put in, we do see the Millennium Falcon is now being followed by the Slave I, the ship that’s owned by Boba Fett.  There was an earlier scene when Vader had hired a team of bounty hunters to track down the Millennium Falcon.  And Boba Fett, who had previously been hired to track down Han for Jabba, was among them.

Meanwhile, Luke and R2 have arrived on Dagobah, which is an unpopulated swamp-covered planet.  Because the planet has no settlements, and is covered by a heavy blanket of clouds, Luke pretty much crashes his X-Wing in the middle of the swampy lake.  He does manage to make it to shore, though.  Even though R2 has a brief spot of trouble with some kind of aquatic beast. (Yes, I know the prequels were made years afterward, but seriously, did R2 completely forget that he could have simply flown to shore?)  After cleaning the gunk and saliva off of R2, Luke sets up camp, where he admits to R2 that he almost thinks he recognizes his surroundings.  Which I guess is meant to imply he had Force-induced premonitions of coming here.

Out of nowhere, Yoda suddenly appears before them, although the Jedi Master does not make his identity known at first. Instead, he takes on this whole act, as if he’s just some crazy old Alien living there.  (It does present the question as to whether or not R2 recognized Yoda, though.  His behavior during Yoda’s initial appearance in this movie suggests not, but shouldn’t R2 have at least noticed that he was at least the same species as Yoda?  What are the odds that there were two individuals of that particular Alien race on the same planet?)  Anyway, from what I can gather, the reason why Yoda was putting on the whole act at first was so he could test Luke, and figure out if he had the right sort of temperament to undergo Jedi Training.  Unfortunately, Luke ends up failing that test by displaying he has too much impatience.  In disappointment, Yoda finally drops the act and starts communicating with Obi-Wan’s Force Ghost, stating that he doesn’t believe Luke can be taught.  However, Obi-Wan continues to vouch for Luke, by stating he’d been just as reckless and whatnot as Luke had been when he’d undergone his Jedi Training.  Luke, upon realizing that the little Alien had been Yoda the whole time, begs for a chance, insisting that he’s not afraid.  To which Yoda states ‘you will be.’

Despite Yoda’s reservations, he begins Luke’s Jedi training sessions.  Which appears to involve Luke running around Dagobah’s surface with Yoda clinging to his back.  Though Yoda does give him a lecture about the dangers of the Dark Side, stating that while the Dark Side is quicker and more seductive, a true Jedi must use the Force for knowledge and defense, never to attack.  At some point, however they end up at this cave that apparently contains concentrated Dark Force energy.  Yoda informs Luke that he must enter the cave, in order to undergo another test. Luke proceeds to do so, but he refuses to heed Yoda’s statement that he won’t need his weapons inside the cave.  

Once he’s inside, Luke finds himself face to face with Darth Vader.  Immediately, Luke activates his lightsaber and proceeds to battle Vader.  The fight ends quickly with Luke decapitating Vader. But when part of Vader’s helmet explodes, exposing the face beneath, Luke is shocked to see his own face within the mask.  Obviously, this was meant to be taken as a lesson, with Luke being shown that he could easily end up just like Vader if he’s not careful.  But I do wonder if this was also meant to be a subtle bit of foreshadowing as to who Vader really was to Luke.  Either way, Yoda seems to sense what happened within the cave and is visibly crestfallen.  Which I guess means that Luke failed his test.  It’s hard to determine what Luke was supposed to have done, though.  Maybe it was the fact that his first instinct was to attack Vader upon seeing his image that made him fail the test.  I did notice the Vader hallucination only activated his lightsaber after Luke did.

Nevertheless, Luke’s Jedi Training continues.   This time, Yoda has moved on to the lesson of exploring the telekinetic aspect of the Force, by having Luke lift rocks with his mind.  Unfortunately, the lesson is interrupted by R2, who franticly informs Luke that the X-Wing is sinking into the swamp.  (Exactly how long has Luke been on Dagobah at this point?  And why did the X-Wing only start to sink now?)  Upon seeing his ship sinking, Luke starts to worry about how he’s supposed to get his ship out now.  To this, Yoda pretty much rolls his eyes and is all ‘haven’t you been paying attention to me?  I’ve literally just been instructing you how to lift things with the Force, remember?’  So Luke decides to take a stab at using the Force to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp. (With Yoda delivering his iconic line of ‘Do or do not.  There is no try.’)

Unfortunately, while Luke’s attempt at pulling the X-Wing out with the Force seemed to be working, he gives up almost instantly, as he can’t get over his preconceived notion on how the X-Wing is simply too big to lift.  Not even Yoda’s reminder on how powerful the Force can be gets through to him.  Luke just simply refuses to even try, stating that what Yoda is asking of him is impossible.  Once again, Yoda is visibly disappointed in Luke’s inability to get it. And, to drive the point home, Yoda effortlessly pulls out the now-submerged X-Wing, placing it safely on the solid ground.

Have to say, it’s almost embarrassing how much Luke is messing up in his training sessions with Yoda.  While I know it was probably done this way to make Luke appear more human and we had to see him struggle a bit, it also makes it a bit problematic.  Like, is this guy really the person who Obi-Wan and Yoda were investing all their faith into?  Is he really their best chance at restoring peace to the galaxy? If so, that’s really worrisome. Then again, they also thought an arrogant whiny brat like Anakin was their prophesized Chosen One, so I guess it makes sense.

Anyway, Han, Leia, Chewbacca and 3PO eventually arrive on Bespin and make their way to Cloud City, a series of buildings suspended above the clouds by anti-gravity boosters or something.  Despite a rather cold welcoming, they’re eventually allowed to land.  Shortly after landing, Lando comes out to greet them personally, along with a few of his staff, including a cyborg named Lobot.  At first, Lando appears to greet Han with hostility, but this is quickly shown to be an act.  (I do wonder if this is the first time Lando and Han have seen each other since the events of Solo, but maybe we’ll get that answer on a later date.)  Once he drops the fake hostility, Lando greets Han like an old friend, even though Han starts showing a bit of jealousy when Lando pours out the charm upon noticing Leia.

As Lando proceeds to show Han, Leia, Chewbacca and 3PO around, he goes on to explain that he obtained the gas mine in a gamble, but it’s been a relatively successful business, despite a number of problems ranging from supply issues to labor disputes.  However, during the impromptu tour, 3PO breaks off from the group when he encounters another Protocol Droid and overhears an Astromech Droid within a side room.  He ends up going to investigate, for reasons I can’t really understand.  So there were other Droids roaming the corridors.  So what?  It’s not as if Droids like 3PO and R2 were rare.  But the movie had to get 3PO alone somehow, I guess.  Anyway, when 3PO heads off, he stumbles into a place he wasn’t supposed to be in, resulting in an unseen figure shooting him into pieces.

Meanwhile, on Dagobah, Luke ends up getting a premonition during another training exercise.  He ends up seeing a vision of Han and Leia being tortured on Bespin’s Cloud City.  When he tells Yoda about his vision, Yoda informs him that he’s seeing the future, but goes on to say that even he cannot tell if Han and Leia would die, as the future is always in motion.  Yoda tells Luke that he could help them if he went to find his friends, but doing so would destroy everything they had fought and suffered for.  Despite this, Luke finds he can’t concentrate on continuing his training as his vision is plaguing him.  He ultimately decides to travel to Bespin in order to help Han and Leia.  As he’s preparing his X-Wing to leave Dagobah, Yoda and Obi-Wan’s Force Ghost attempt to talk Luke out of it, stating that his training isn’t complete and only a fully trained Jedi Knight has any hope of defeating Vader and Emperor Palpatine.  Obi-Wan goes on to state that if Luke chooses to face Vader now, then he will do it alone, as he and Yoda won’t be able to help him.  In the end, Luke decides that it’s worth the risk, as the lives of his friends are on the line.  As such, with the promise that he will return to complete his training later, Luke sets off for Bespin, leaving Yoda and Obi-Wan to watch his departure in despair.  At this point, Yoda states that Luke isn’t their last hope, as ‘there is another.’ Which is obviously meant to set up the reveal that Luke has a twin sister.  Though if they were thinking Leia could have been their Plan B, they totally botched that one, as nobody has even informed her that she’s Force Sensitive yet.

Back on Cloud City, Han, Leia and Chewbacca have noticed 3PO’s absence, prompting Chewbacca to go looking for the Droid. He ends up finding 3PO’s scattered pieces inside the mining facility’s junkyard and manages to retrieve the broken Droid from the little pig men who work there.  There’s also a small scene at this point with Han and Leia, which pretty much only exists to show that Leia is much more receptive to Han’s affection since their big kissing scene, as she allows him to kiss her forehead. (There was even an earlier scene when she willingly kisses his cheek upon seeing his plan on blending in with the Imperial garbage was working).  However, Leia makes it clear that she doesn’t believe Han will stick around, as she fully expects him to head off on his own again once he’s done escorting Leia to rejoin the rest of the Rebel Alliance.

Before Han could confirm or deny Leia’s assumption, or Chewbacca could start working on putting 3PO back together, Lando stops by the suite that he’d loaned them.  He invites the group to join him for a drink.  On the way to the dining hall, Lando informs Han, Leia and Chewbacca that his mining operation is not under the Empire’s jurisdiction, but is small enough to not be noticed.  Nevertheless, there is still the possibility that the Empire would eventually find out about Lando’s mining business and shut them down.  But Lando states he’d just made a deal that would ensure the Empire would never set foot on Bespin.  The details of that deal becomes clear when Lando opens up a door, revealing that Vader himself is waiting for them.   It turns out, because of Boba Fett tipping them off, Vader and a squadron of Stormtoopers had arrived on Cloud City before the Millennium Falcon did. As such, Vader had bribed Lando into betraying Han, Leia and Chewbacca to the Empire.

On a side note, props to Han in this moment. His first instinct upon seeing Vader is to move in front of Leia and fire his blaster at the Sith Lord, despite the fact that he probably knows by now that this wouldn’t accomplish anything. But it’s the fact that that was his first instinct that what makes this moment admirable.  He’s probably learned by now that Vader had personally tortured Leia while she was imprisoned on the Death Star, and also was among the men who forced her to watch as her home planet was blown up, and therefore moves to shield her from Vader without thinking.  Gotta love it.

Despite Han’s best efforts, he, Leia and Chewbacca are all taken prisoner, being confined to a prison chamber.  While he’s confined, Chewbacca takes the time to start reassembling 3PO, which is how we learn that the reason why he got shot into pieces in the first place because he’d stumbled across the hiding Stormtroopers earlier and they didn’t want him to warn anybody of their presence prematurely. Anyway, Vader and the rest of the Imperials proceed to torture Han (and maybe Leia as well, even though we don’t see what they do to Leia).  As Han is being tortured, Vader assures Boba Fett that he can have Han once the Empire is done with him.

Lando, however, is clearly starting to regret betraying his old friend to the Empire.  Especially when he’s notified that Han will eventually be turned over to Boba Fett, who plans to deliver him to Jabba, and that Leia and Chewbacca would not be permitted to ever leave Cloud City again.  He ends up visiting the three prisoners in their cell to explain that the Empire wasn’t really after them at all.  Instead, Vader is simply using Han, Leia and Chewbacca as bait to trick Luke into coming to Bespin.  (I guess this is why Vader was so insistent on following the Millennium Falcon into the asteroid field.  He knew the people on board were Luke’s friends and that he was sure to come rescue them if he knew they were in danger.)  Upon hearing the details of Vader’s plan, Han lunges at Lando in rage, only for Lando’s bodyguards to beat him back until Lando breaks up the confrontation.  Before leaving the cell, Lando apologizes not being able to do more for them, but insists he has too much at stake to risk angering Vader.

However, it’s then discovered that Vader intends to turn Han into a Guinea pig.  His plan is ultimately to force Luke into this carbon freezing chamber, which will essentially encase him in carbonite until further notice.  But since the process has never been used on a human before, Vader plans to test it on Han first.  Lando is visibly shocked upon hearing this, but ultimately does nothing to prevent it, as he’s fearful of what the Empire would do if he tried to interfere.  When Han is brought into the chamber where the carbon freezing takes place, Chewbacca tries to fight back, but Han urges him to stop, telling his friend that he should save his strength as Leia will need him to keep her safe.  Reluctantly, Chewbacca listens to Han.  But before the little pig guys from earlier drag Han onto the platform to be lowered into the carbon freezing chamber, he’s able to share one last kiss with Leia, who finally admits that she loves him.  And while I think there are some people who might give Han flak for simply saying ‘I know’ instead of returning the sentiment, I think it makes more sense this way.  Throughout the movie, we’ve seen signs of how much Han cares for Leia and how he largly tries to put her first.  So, in that moment, he probably realized how distraught Leia must have been, especially since she’s picked now to come out and say that she loves him.  He must have realized that she was saying it now because she was afraid he’d die without knowing how she really felt.  If that’s the case, by saying ‘I know,’ he was reassuring her that he’d always known, and that she didn’t have to feel guilty for not telling him sooner.

Ultimately, Han gets encased in carbonate.  And because the monitors fixed to the sides of the carbonite block indicate he survived the process, Vader orders that the chamber be reset for Luke.  Vader then proceeds to instruct the Stormtroopers to escort Leia and Chewbacca to his ship. An order that shocks Lando, as Vader had previously stated that Leia and Chewbacca were to be left alone.  When he tries to remind Vader about that, Vader simply announces that he’s changed his mind.

Before anything more could be said, notification arrives that Luke had just arrived at Cloud City.  As the Stormtroopers escort Leia and Chewbacca (who is now carrying the partially repaired 3PO), Vader gives orders that Luke is to be led right into the carbon freezing chamber.  So Luke, despite Leia’s attempts to warn him, walks right into Vader’s trap.  The two begin a prolonged lightsaber battle, with the occasional intermission.  Yeah, there are quite a few moments during this battle where Luke gets shoved into the carbon freezing chamber but escapes at the last possible second by performing a Force fueled jump, or when he gets sucked out a window.  There are a few moments like that, in which the movie is trying to drag it out and move the battle to a different location.

While all of this is going on, Lando has apparently decided that Vader had gone too far.  As he’s walking through Cloud City with the Stormtroopers escorting Leia and Chewbacca to Vader’s ship, he secretly signals Lobot to rally together Lando’s staff.  These men end up ambushing the Stormtroopers en route to Vader’s ship, allowing Lando to try and get Chewbacca and Leia to safety.  However, they’ve both too angry at Lando over what happened to Han to accept his help, with Leia doing nothing to interfere when Chewbacca tries to strangle Lando.  It’s only when Lando manages to inform them that they can still save Han if they can reach the East Platform before Boba Fett leaves that they decide to ease up on him. Taking advantage of this information, Leia and Chewbacca both race off, leaving Lando gasping for breath. Unfortunately, while they are joined by R2 (who got separated from Luke) along the way, they don’t make it in time and can only watch helplessly as the Slave I takes off.

However, while they have failed to prevent Boba Fett from taking Han away, Leia, Chewbacca, Lando and the two Droids now have to deal with the fact that additional Stormtroopers have apparently figured out that Leia and Chewbacca have essentially escaped, as they appear on the scene and start to shoot at them.  To get away, they have to fight their way to where the Millennium Falcon is docked.  Along the way, Lando manages to send out an announcement through Cloud City’s P.A. system, informing the population that the Empire has taken over the city and that they’d better get out before more Imperials arrive.  As a result, a whole bunch of people start running through the halls of Cloud City, which probably helped give Lando, Leia, Chewbacca and the two Droids cover as they made their way to the Falcon.  (Try and spot the random extra carrying the ice cream maker during this scene.  This guy is apparently so iconic, te fans gave him an elaborite backstory.) Eventually, Lando, Leia and the others manage to make it to the hanger where the Millennium Falcon is waiting, with R2 managing to hack the door to the hanger bay open.  (Though 3PO, who is still strapped to Chewbacca’s back and has been making pointless comments the whole time, dismisses R2’s attempts to warn them about something being wrong with the Millennium Falcon’s hyperdrive.) Once R2 gets the doors open, they are able to take off on the Falcon.

Now, I have to pause for a moment to talk about Lando.  In spite of everything, he’s actually a rather likable character.  Sure, he did betray Han and the others, but it’s still made clear that he’s not doing this because he’s a bad guy.  And as things progress, you can see he’s seriously regretting his actions, especially when Vader’s intentions with Han and Leia become clearer.  And in the end, he makes a valent attempt at redeeming himself.  In short, Lando is an iconic grey character.  And he even seems to have been cut from the same cloth as Han. Remember that Han had this whole ‘look out for number one’ approach at the start of A New Hope.  But he eventually turned himself around and slowly started to emerge as a heroic character.  Well, now we’re seeing a similar progression with Lando.  The only real difference is that we didn’t get to see the moment when Han ultimately decided to come back and join in the Battle of the Death Star.  With Lando, we can see the moment when he decides to officially start fighting back against the Empire.

Of course, while Lando, Leia, Chewbacca and the Droids were escaping on the Falcon, Luke’s battle with Vader was continuing on. It ultimately ends up on, you guessed it, a long platform over a large gaping chute.  The lightsaber battle comes to an end when Vader slices off Luke’s hand (which is not too dissimilar as to how Anakin lost his hand in a battle with Count Dooku in Attack of the Clones.)

As the injured Luke tries to stagger away from Vader, the Sith Lord tries to coax him into surrendering and join forces with him. Only for Luke to adamantly declare that he’d never join Vader.  But Luke is thrown for a loop when Vader reveals the truth- that he is Luke’s father.  The revelation is devastating to Luke, as he can sense the truth of Vader’s words.  However, in spite of the shocking revelation, Luke still refuses to accept Vader’s offer to pledge his allegiance to the Empire.  Instead, he allows himself to simply fall off the platform. Thankfully, Luke’s fall doesn’t prove to be fatal, but it does result in him ending hanging from some kind of thin pole affixed to the underbelly of Cloud City.  I could be wrong, of course, but I’m guessing these poles serve as part of Cloud City’s anti-gravity generator that keeps the city hovering over the clouds of Bespin.

Obviously, this presented a problem, though.  Luke is still no doubt in serious pain from getting his hand chopped off, so he’s not going to be able to hang on to this anti-gravity pole forever.  Thankfully, he manages to remain collected enough to call out to Leia through the Force. Because of the twin bond they currently don’t know they have, Leia is able to hear Luke’s call.  She convinces Chewbacca and Lando to turn the Millennium Falcon around so they can go back and save Luke.  They manage to do so, with Lando being the one to get Luke into the ship, where Leia is quick to help stabilize Luke’s injuries until they can get him somewhere for proper medical attention.

However, once Luke is on board, the heroes once again find themselves with the issue of how to escape the Imperial Star Destroyers. Especially since, as R2 tried to warn them before, the now-repaired hyperdrive unit was subsequently deactivated by Vader’s forces.  (Insert more useless commentary from 3PO, who continues to be more of an annoyance than an asset.)  Thankfully, R2 manages to switch it back on in time, allowing Lando to make the jump to lightspeed.  Luke, on the other hand, is unable to focus on how they were lucky to escape with their lives, as his thoughts remain on the knowledge that Vader was his father the whole time.  And he’s left wondering why Obi-Wan never told him the truth about the matter.

An undetermined amount of time later, our heroes have finally managed to rejoin the rest of the Rebel Alliance, who now reside in some space station somewhere.  There, Luke is able to receive proper medical treatment, with a Medical Droid fitting him with a highly advanced prosthetic hand.  As Luke adjusts to his new appendage, he joins Leia, R2 and 3PO (who was finally put completely back together again) at the window looking out into space, where they watch as Lando (who has apparently officially joined the Rebel Alliance) and Chewbacca take off in the Millennium Falcon.  Their plan is to track down Jabba and Boba Fett in order to find out where they’ve taken Han, in order to formulate a plan to rescue their friend.  Before leaving Lando gives them his word that he and Chewbacca will signal them the moment they find Han and then meet them at an established location Tatooine.  And it’s on that note, the movie ends.

While it might have been a gutsy move to end this movie on such an obvious cliffhanger, they probably knew at this point that they were going to make more Star Wars movies, considering the original film was an instant hit with audiences.  Although, this did pretty much set up a pattern that continued with the other trilogies, with the second film in a trilogy always ending on a cliffhanger.  (Although, The Last Jedi’s ending was a different kind of cliffhanger, for reasons I’ll discuss on a later date.)

As for the reveal that Vader was Luke’s father, I gather this was a huge shock for audiences at the time, as the prequels obviously didn’t exist when this movie first premiered, and there was nothing substantial to suggest it prior to that moment when Vader came out and revealed it. However, I honestly cannot remember how I reacted to that when I first saw the movie.  Of course, I was probably around three when I first saw it, and by that point, I was able to watch the movies on a VHS tape.  It might have been possible that I’d already been spoiled by the time I watched it, or I was too young to really grasp why that was such a big deal.  I just don’t remember being shocked by it.  

Also, it actually did surprise me how much I found myself loving Han/Leia during the rewatch I did in preparation for this review. Not that I was ever opposed to the pairing, of course.  I guess I just never was that invested in it before.  But this time, I found myself simply loving their dynamic.  Maybe I was just noticing the numerous similarities to Captain Swan, my ultimate OTP, this time around.  Because there were a LOT of parallels going on here.  Either way, I can now safely say I’m a Han/Leia shipper.

Next week is Return of the Jedi.  Which is probably the most interesting of the films, to say the least.

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[swfanficbyjz]

Guiding Light - SW AU

Pairing: Brotp Anakin/Ahsoka

Another time travel story inspired by @litheian, that I’d actually forgotten that I’d started writing. This time Anakin goes into the future before completely becoming Darth Vader. 

Part 1:

“I hate you!” he screamed at Obi wan as the flames consumed his broken body. He couldn’t die here! He had to save Padmé! This was all wrong! How dare he? He couldn’t believe he’d once trusted him. A scream of agony ripped through his body. 

“You’ve failed.” He looked up at the source of the voice. A temple guardian stood there in their heavy robes and faceless mask, seemingly oblivious to the heat and fire. But at the moment he appeared, he realized that the fire burning up his body had frozen; everything had frozen around him. 

 “That’s not possible! I can still save her!” he shouted at it, wondering how it had gotten here. He’d slaughtered all of them. Was this some trick of the force? 

 “You have fallen from the light, but you have failed the light itself.” It said.

 “Why should I care? I just want to save my wife!” he exclaimed angrily.

 “Even if you were to succeed at that, do you think she’d want you like this?” it asked him. “Do you really believe she’d look at you full of hatred, the good person that she is, and stand by your side while you walk through darkness?”

 “She has to! She is my wife!” If it weren’t for the mask, he’d be almost certain the guardian was looking at him with pity. He didn’t want pity. “Begone specter!”

 “I came to offer you a chance to redeem yourself before you walk too far down this path. That is if you can ever walk again.” It said.

 “I don’t want redemption!”

 “Are you sure about that? Because the world I’m about to show you burns with your selfishness. And if you refuse to repair the damage, your children and grandchildren will pay the ultimate price. Is that the world your wife would have wanted to raise your child in?”

 “Fine! Show me the light even though it won’t save me now!”

 “So be it.”

 ---

 He blinked a few times and looked around. He couldn’t see much of anything at first. Just darkness.  He turned seeing movement. Across what looked like a chasm was a ridge slightly more lit that his immediate surroundings. Soft light was shining down on it from what looked like a hole punched in the sky. Someone was standing there looking up through the hole. They felt familiar, but he couldn't make out anything distinct from this distance. 

He descended into the valley between them, surprised to realize that what he'd first thought were dead plants, were actually blackened statues of ash in the shape of people. Was this the future the temple guardian had warned him about? Many had claimed that he was some 'chosen one' from a mythical prophecy, but he had always hated that title. Obi wan had said it to him again back on Mustafar. He still burned with the pain of that fight. 

He was just jealous of him. Jealous of his power and what he had. He could have had it too, if he didn't let the Jedi hold him back. He picked up a lightsaber that was sitting on the ground and ignited it. It sparked a few times but didn't turn on. He tossed it aside ignoring the whisper of the force that had accompanied it; the echo of a memory long forgotten. He didn't care that much to know it. 

The temple guardian had told him he must pass a trial, one that would involve him walking into a dark future of his own creation. One he helped shape. Why should he care about it? They'd done nothing for him. Everything he'd been fighting for had been ripped away from him by the Jedi, and by the people he'd sworn to protect. It was almost as if the force actually expected him to be sorry. Why should he be? Nobody had cared about him like Padmé had, but the Jedi had stolen her from him too!

He kicked a couple stones and looked back up to the ridge. The figure was clearer now, but still he couldn't be sure who it was. They were familiar, but not. Based on the look of this place, there weren't many people here still alive. So whoever was standing there must be the person meant to guide him through this trial. Well, hope they're ready to fail, since there was nothing they could show him that would change the path he was on. They seemed to have a feminine shape to them, what if it was Padmé? But what would she be doing here?

He climbed the last of the hill to the top and froze in his tracks. The figure turned to look at him. "Ahsoka?" He blurted out in surprise. It couldn't be, but... her markings were the same. She was taller, her head piece in jagged stripes rather than clean lines, the lekku went down to her waist. Her body had filled out. She wasn't the kid he remembered.

"Anakin?" The shock in her voice quite apparent. 

"Hey Snips!" He said, heading towards her but to his surprise she backed away from him looking scared. 

"No, no, no!" She said, shaking her head. "This can't be! You're not real!" Her hands were up, lightsabers at the ready. He stopped moving. 

"Of course I'm real. Why wouldn't I be?" He asked curiously. 

"I just fought you!" She said. 

"What?" No that couldn't be true. Why would he fight her? She wasn't even a Jedi anymore. She wasn't the enemy. Well, in a way she was. Anyone of his old life was, but she didn't represent any of those that had oppressed him, he had no reason to fight her. 

"This place is playing tricks on me! Go away!" She yelled backing away. 

"Ahsoka?" He asked concerned. "I'm no ghost. I mean I guess in a way I am. What year is it?"

She wrinkled her face. "What do you mean what year?" 

"How much time has passed? I mean, you're older now, how long has it been since I last saw you?" He didn't understand why she was so freaked out. So what if he was from the past and he looked like his old self? He'd have thought she'd be happy to see him. Even with how things had ended between them.

"I saw you yesterday..." she said nervously. "But you didn't look like that."

"That can't be right. The last I saw you, you were leaving for Mandalore." He said looking around. Where were they, anyways?

"Anakin..." she started. He glanced back at her, not liking the tone in her voice. "That was sixteen years ago." She sounded hollow. 

"But..." he stammered, then he paused. This was the future. That's what the temple guardian had said. Even though she looked different, this was his old padawan. Seeing her had made him forget that times had changed. He didn't know how much, though, that was the problem. And based solely on her reaction... it was bad. Very bad. Perhaps the temple guardian had been right, this wasn't a future he'd want for his child.

She turned her back on him, crossing her arms. He saw her take a deep breath, an unmistakable tremble. He knew when she turned back around she would be hoping he wasn't still standing there. He didn't know what to say. What could he say? He didn't know what had happened. Whatever the fight was between them, she was shaken by it. What could he do to comfort her? Should he even try to? This wasn't his time. This was a trial. Likely a figment of his imagination to distance himself from the pain of the fire back on Mustafar. 

But if it was a dream... why would she be the first person he thought of? The first one he pictured? He'd cared for her, but she'd left him. She'd failed as his padawan. She'd failed as a Jedi and she'd failed as his friend. If anyone should feel remorse over what had happened, it was her. Not him. 

The words of the temple guardian drifted back into his head, 'you have fallen from the light, but you have failed the light itself.' It was a riddle of course, he knew that. But for some reason, he was suddenly sure that she was the light it had been referring to. At least in the second part of the sentence. He'd failed her? Impossible! He'd done everything to protect her, to clear her name, to make it possible to stay. She was the one that walked away. 

 He started at the realization that she was looking at him again. He hadn't noticed her turn back around. There was a deep sorrow etched across her features. One that spoke volumes about pain and loss and longing. Suffering. Things that no matter how angry he'd gotten at her for turning her back on him, he'd never wish on her. 

 "My world revolved around you. It did even after I left. And it still does." She whispered, her voice ethereal and distant. "But the one time I made a choice to protect myself, you negated all the other things I'd done for you. My one selfish moment, the one moment of fear and doubt, the only time I ever acted on either of those things... became the only thing you remembered." She crossed one arm over to grab her elbow, biting her lip. "I tried to save you, Anakin. For years. But you never saw me. You never cared. You continued down your self-destructive path. And when I faced everything you'd become... every moment of hate and anger and fear wrapped up and twisted into a demonic being, I still loved you. But again, it wasn't enough for you." She looked up at him and he was certain the look in her eyes would burn itself into his memory forever.

 He opened his mouth to argue, but memories flooded his brain like a play by play. She was right. He couldn't find a single memory in which she'd acted selfishly besides leaving the temple. All he saw were times she was afraid, but did it anyways. Times she was doubtful, but trusted him anyways... and time after time where she fought her way in to save him, protect him or to stand up for him. The memories left a bitter taste in his mouth. If it hadn't been for her, he would have died early on in the Clone Wars. And suddenly he didn't feel so powerful or special. He couldn't be if some kid had to save him over and over again. 

 His life had been made up of a singular focus, his wife. Padmé had been everything he cared about. His only true devotion. He hadn't even been that committed to the Jedi order. Not if he could live that lie for so long. "Where is Padmé?" He asked, but Ahsoka was gone. He saw her weaving her way through the frozen people below. There was something so haunting about it. Like she was a ghost in a graveyard. But even from this distance, she seemed to give off her own light. She'd lost everything... but she could still stand in and trust the light side of the force. How?

 He watched her movements for awhile. They were slow. He could see the weight she carried on her shoulders as if it was physical, one he’d known well. He could see the mourning in her movements as she drifted from body to body. He felt guilt rise in his throat like bile. Was he responsible for these deaths? For the sorrow she carried? He didn’t want to believe it. It couldn’t be true. He’d fought for her, he’d protected her. He’d even forgiven her enough to send her to Mandalore as a General. Even after she’d left him. The entire council, including Obi wan had been against it. But he’d given her the go ahead instead. He’d even returned her lightsabers to her. At such a critical point in the war, he’d also sent Rex with her. Someone he relied on to be there for him. This couldn’t be his fault. He’d given her everything. Even when he’d been solely focused on his wife. He’d still run out there to save others. He’d still put them first.

 The temple guardian was trying to break him down. It was trying to make him question everything he’d fought for. Well it wouldn’t work. He would not be swayed because of one sob story. Even if it was hers. 

 He saw her kneel down and pick up something black and shiny. He couldn’t make out what it was from where he stood, but the way she stared at it sent shivers down his spine. Whatever it was, meant something to her. He made his way to her, but she didn’t look up when he stopped in front of her. He could see now that what she was holding looked like a piece of a black face mask. One red eye stared back at him.

 “I couldn’t kill you… like I should have.” She breathed. “So how are you haunting me?”

 He reached down and took the mask piece from her, flipping it over in his hands. Whatever it was felt hot to the touch. Fire seared across his senses, like he’d felt on Mustafar. He could feel the hatred pouring off this object as if it had been dipped in a liquid version of every negative emotion that existed. He dropped it in the ash as he realized it left a burn mark across his hand. She stared at where it had fallen for a moment and then looked up at him where he was rubbing his hand wondering why it hadn’t burned her. He knelt down in front of her and reached for her hands and removed her gloves. She stared at him blankly as he inspected her hands but saw no evidence of burns. He used her glove to pick it up and set it in her bare hands but still, it didn’t burn her.

 “Why isn’t it burning you?” he asked, showing her the mark it had caused across his palm.

 Instead of answering, she dropped it and took his hand in hers, setting one over the burn mark and looked up in his eyes. “It already did.” She said finally. “You just can’t see my scars.” She let go of his hand and stood up. He stared at his hand. The mark was gone as though she’d healed it. He looked up at her confused wondering how that was possible.

 He picked it up again and stared at the menacing red eye that stared back at him. He saw his reflection in it, but it wasn’t him. It was a burned and broken version of him. Pale, scarred and bald. He dropped it. This was definitely the strangest dream he’d ever had. 

 “Ahsoka! Wait!” he called after her as she moved away again. She paused and looked over her shoulder. “I’m either having the weirdest dream ever or I actually did travel into the future to be here.” He said. She stared at him, looking him over. But she didn’t say anything. “So where are we? And what is happening?”

 “You really want to know?” she asked.

 “Not really, but if I ever want to go home or wake up… I should probably figure out what’s going on.” He said looking around them.

 “Well… I can’t help you with that. Because I don’t know either. As to where we are? This is Malachor. An ancient Sith world. I came here in search of knowledge and instead found a weapon that does all of this.” She said, beckoning to the graveyard/battlefield around them. “And a man I thought I once knew, so twisted by the dark side he couldn’t even admit he was the same person.” Her words were pointed and brash.

 Why couldn’t she forgive him for whatever it was she thought he’d done? “If you’re trying to make a point, just say it.” He said finally. Annoyed that she was speaking in riddles like the temple guardian. 

 “You need me to spell it out for you? Fine. Everyone around you cared about you. Many of them loved you. But you were too obsessed with Padme to care about any of the rest of us. Well the joke is on you, she’s dead! So is Obi wan! So is the rest of the Jedi! They’re all gone, Anakin! And it’s all your fault!” she spat at him and turned away.

 He stared at her back in disbelief. He’d never seen her have an outburst quite like that. He sunk to his knees. Padme was dead? His vision had come true then. He had failed her just like he’d failed his mother. It was all Obi wan’s fault! If he hadn’t of come to Mustafar, they never would have fought! He would have been able to go home to his wife, he would have been able to save her! Ahsoka said he was dead too. Good.

 He couldn’t bring himself to move for a long time. He could feel the darkness raging in him. Even if he was no longer on fire, he might as well have been. This fire would burn his soul though, not his body. How could Ahsoka feel such pain and not the darkness too?

[astarsdarkheart]

Incandescence

Mustafar is the place where Jedi go to die. Most have forgotten that the fifth precept of their code can be taken literally.

Mustafar is the place where Sith are forged from the horror of their apprenticeships. Their masters always forget how their code ends.

A/N: Trying out cross-posting to Tumblr and seeing if anyone bites on that. The notes for this one are a little lengthy, so they’re going under the cut, with the bulk of the fic because this got ramblier than I was expecting when I started writing. This has also been posted on Dreamwidth, AO3 and Pillowfort.

Warnings for death/murder scene, mention of bodily trauma.

His old master’s silhouette blurred into the smoky darkness of the shadowed bank. He rocked and struggled forward, metal fingers slipping on the glass-smooth pebbles beneath him I hate you, I hate you that crumbled as his hand clenched around the soot-shards.

Hate from anger, from the burning in his stomach, the belly of the dragon that had now come to eat him alive. There is no emotion, there is peace. Thoughts melted in the furnace he lay trapped in. The silhouette vanished in the dimness, his last sight of his old master the faint gleam of his lightsabre in the roiling glow of the churning lava that surrounded him, drowning him in fire.

Suffering from hate, hate from anger, anger from no anger from no it cannot be anger from fear.

There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.

Fear slipping like snakes through his ribs, tightening around the spark-heavy air that charred his lungs as he settled on the rocks. Metal in his arm screamed in protest at the heat and strain. It had never been built to bear his whole weight. He’d been the hero with no fear and now... fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate...

I hate you, I hate you, I was angry at you, I feared you, I feared for you...

The fire in the air closed in like a cloak of durasteel as the snakes in his chest tangled together in his heart, hissing their coldness as he shut his eyes against the searing dust in the air.

The flaws of the Jedi Order are spectacular. This man is but the symbol of its fall. One of their greatest, their most powerful, and they wished to hold him back.

That is where they fall, these Jedi. All those who seek power fear to lose it. They learnt that lesson, then decided that they would humble themselves – and that this, this... surrender of their greatest gifts, their most awesome ability would bestow greatness on them.

Greatness is power. And all those who seek power fear to lose it.

Let the hate burn itself to embers along with his flesh. There is no passion, there is serenity. Tongues of flame tested the edges of his flesh. His teeth gritted to keep the ash out of his throat.

I am not afraid! He did not fear death. He would not fight it now the dragon that had whispered in the night had taken shape around him. Trails of water ran down his cheeks only to steam away, Tatooine’s heat in the water, watch your water but did that matter now?

Nothing matters. Obi-Wan had walked away. Padmé would join him if she and the children survive. Nothing more to think, nothing more to feel. No need to fear death now.

There is no chaos, there is harmony. He would pass away in the fire that had welcomed him to life. The glow in his chest that had answered the hearth-heat of the twin suns. The fire of passion, of the love he’d once known.

Vengeful fire stripped the skin off his flesh. Unkind, hateful. Hate from anger, anger from fear, but what could this river of failing rock fear? All this furnace would ever forge was corpses. Like the suns he’d been born under and I am their son just ashes in the howling wind left behind.

There is no death, there is the Force. The flames had grown familiar. The dragon was close to gathering in the last of him. Like sinking into home.

A shame to waste an apprentice as powerful as this one. He will be easily manipulated, as he has been for years. And his injuries will require... special attentions. He will not trouble me.

It is only a matter of ensuring that he remains volatile enough to live. His presence is fading. Despair will engender passion, so long as he remains alive long enough for the flames he has sunk into to forge that despair into rage.

He must be reminded of our code. He knows the fallen Order’s one far better. Injured and distressed as he now is, he may forget which one it is he needs to remember.

A presence in the mist of soot. He lifted his head. The hiss of his own breath let heat stir the ashes around him anew. A dark figure shuddered into dim clarity.

“Listen, my apprentice.”

The dragon coiled tight in his stomach. Pebbles crumbled between his fingers.

“You will survive this, Lord Vader.” Sidious crouched down beside him, the flushed skin surrounding his scar of a grin. “Concentrate. Remember what you have learnt.”

Orders from his master but what will a master do when his slave burns alive save laugh more pebbles crushed under his hand.

Sidious’ hiss became a sing-song whisper. A lullaby for the dragon. “There is no peace, there is only passion.”

The dragon’s fire still seamed his skin. But he no longer shook, was no longer racked with convulsing shudders of pain. Passion, yet serenity.

“Through passion I gain strength.”

Breath gusting out like a breeze as his chest lifted from the glowing obsidian beneath. His tabards were charred though, hanging in crumbling strips. Fire and ice colliding in his veins, the chill of despair tempered by a burning certainty. Chaos, yet harmony.

“Through strength I gain power.”

Weights of what he’d lost held him down. Teeth gritted, jaw tight though it tore at weakened, ashy flesh. His eyes burned. But nothing else, not anymore. To burn was to give himself up to the dragon’s temptations. Emotion, yet peace.

“Through power I gain victory.”

In a flash of clarity through the soot and smoke-haze, he remembered. Padme’s shock as he’d asked if Obi-Wan was alive. Her agony as she’d collapsed. Obi-Wan’s horror. With the power of the flames gathering in flaring muscle as he drew himself upright, he understood it is, it is because I made it so. Like strings of an instrument the Force hummed its harmony with the realisation that made his jaw relax, letting the flying embers into him again. Ignorance, yet knowledge.

“Through victory my chains are broken.”

“Death, yet the Force.” Ghostly words whispered from beyond charred lips, a scorched throat. Sidious followed him to stand as he found himself balanced on something raw and hot, not flesh but something warmly akin to it, something the Force allowed to exist without contorting and crying out the way it did in Sidious’ heart. “The Force shall free me.”

This figure in its eldritch verglas incandescence is so unlike my apprentice that something must have possessed him. Anakin Skywalker is weak, fragile, bound too tight by his own fear to break away from what he knows.

This spirit that has taken his place... I do not know it for Sith or Jedi. The heat, the passion, is something that no Jedi would condone. And yet... the ice that seals the fire, prevents it from doing harm... and the fire fails to melt the ice. Perhaps this creature is a traitor. Certainly a blasphemy in its mixing of the Jedi’s failures and our code.

But he still speaks with Anakin Skywalker’s voice, though it seems his throat is near destroyed. No matter. Words are for those like Tyranus, who can make effective use of them. Not stuttering, rambling weak-witted things like Skywalker.

The words came unbidden in the singing of the Force. “All I asked of you was that you would help me save Padmé.”

“And if in your anger...”

“No.”

The dragon in his stomach, the progenitor of all those little serpents that hissed between his ribs, in his ears, had risen to roar again. A ghost-flesh hand outstretched to Sidious’ throat. The hood fell away to reveal the eyes that shared the colour of the wounded landscape as Sidious’ breath became a wheeze, a tortured hiss like the one his own scorched lungs produced.

“You fed that fear.” Fingers tightening, cold around the soot that couldn’t fly away in time. “And you mean to make it flare brighter even now!”

“Calm... yourself, my... apprentice.” The words weak between the gasps. As feeble as this master’s weakened by his own grasping at power body. “She... lives... for now. But without... you...”

“You would let her die.” Burn wounds blazed around the snarl that twisted his lips. Sidious twitched as his feet left the bank. Pebbles and soot slipped away beneath his boots, tumbling down the bank towards the river of fire that had spawned them. “I obeyed you because you told me you knew how to save her, and you would let her die!”

“You do not... know...”

“Ignorance, yet knowledge.” Sidious hovered among the storm of sparks in the air. The hot breeze tugged his hair over his eyes, but there was no more pain in the touch of hot rocks and burning air. Flurries of hot and cold, raining ice and fire, still spun between his ears. How long had he lain prone against the volcanic marble that lined the river? Padmé, Obi-Wan... they could be long gone but if I end Sidious’ rule here that is enough.

Flickering lightning burst in the air as Sidious twitched in his grip. “You are as foolish as your masters. Arrogant enough to think Jedi ways...”

“The Force shall free me.” A burning hand closed into a fist, holding Sidious aloft. The yellow eyes rolled to expose whites flecked with soot. No more masters. Just him and the Force and none of you will fool me again!

He has become something else entirely. This is no Jedi, to attempt to murder me this way. And yet... there is so little Sith in him. His passion, his rage, it is far too controlled.

Not controlled, perhaps, so much as channelled. He has learnt... control over the suppression that I was always given to think the Jedi favoured. Yet what disciple of the Dark Side would choose to keep their passion so repressed save one who

Sidious kept gagging as he stared, breaths heaving in his chest. So little of his flesh left unscarred, but he could stand nonetheless. Some beautiful trick of the Force but how long will it last?

His eyes narrowed as he glared at Sidious. At this other master who had promised things he’d meant to take away all along. He turned to the river of orange flickers between the crust of darkness.

A twist of the arm and Sidious was flung out into the lava. His robes pooled over the crust of the river.

Perhaps that last pathetic call he heard was one of agony. The Sith Lord vanished into the fire that had taken the living flesh off him.

He turned from the river. His strides made no sound, not a single pebble shifting under his feet. He lifted his left hand – Obi-Wan had cut away flesh and blood, but some phantom remnant of the limb made of fire frozen in place still flexed with the tendons that he could still feel.

The Emperor was dead, and the Empire barely born. What now? What crimes can I answer for when death has failed to touch me?

Death, yet the Force. Whatever lay in store for this Empire built on sand and sand is quicker to fall apart underfoot than these pebbles he could at least seek out Obi-Wan and Padmé. If they will still look at me.

There is no ‘light’ and ‘dark’. Only the Force, and the ways it can be twisted.

Life lives and it suffers and it dies only to form the dirt from which new life will rise. Touch the Force and it will give rise to life unlike what most would know as such. Is it an act of darkness to raise such things, things that were never supposed to live? Or is it an act of light, to give shape to something that will not suffer for the mere crime of daring to live? Is that not what the Force wishes, for life to thrive?

Ah, but the living Force is only one side of the story.

Artoo began to squeak as he approached, rocking forwards and backwards. Like the droid was seeking an escape.

“It’s just me, Artoo.” Careful of the fiery aether that seemed to have taken the place of his limbs, Anakin bent down and put his right hand, the one of cold metal, atop Artoo’s dome head. “It’s time for us to leave.”

Artoo hesitated, before letting out a series of rapid, inquisitive beeps.

Anakin shook his head. “I... I was wrong. The Chancellor made promises he never meant to keep.”

Artoo rocked forward, letting out a dejected bloop.

“I have to try to talk to Obi-Wan and Padmé.” Anakin sighed as he straightened up. No pain, not even in the scars covering what flesh remained.

Artoo’s beep sounded much cheerier as the droid trundled around to the back of the ship. Anakin managed a smile through stiffening scars as he leapt up and hoisted himself into the cockpit.

The Force swept up a ghostly breeze around him, carrying presences and feelings from Hutts only knew where into his mind. He sat back in the cockpit and shut his eyes, letting it all just sink in for a moment.

Two familiar sparks hovered somewhere not that far away – not by hyperspace routes, at least – dimmed by something heavy weighing on them.

Obi-Wan and Padmé. He sighed as he opened his eyes and started the engine. The absence of the lightsabre on his belt still bothered him. No use dwelling on it.

Death, yet the Force. He could carry on, even in the world that Sidious had left behind before it could begin.

The Force shall free me.

The train of thought here started with that post about how a suitless Vader would just be walking around like... 'the biggest dilf in the galaxy', I believe the phrase was? That interpretation isn't one I much care for. There's a post I have a vague memory of reading at some point that mentions that the poster's idea of a suitless Vader is one who takes the whole 'The Force shall free me' schtick from the Sith Code and runs with it, and then there's @jerseydevious​ discussing the whys and wherefores of the suit (recommended reading).

So, thanks to my pettiness about the idea that Vader sans suit is just a hot Vader, we now have a situation where Anakin turns into a semi-Force-ghost thing who can't make up his mind about which code he's following and the author goes off on a (relatively short, at least) meta tangent about his views on the Force. As you do.

[glare-gryphon]

8, 17, or 25 for the latest writing prompt thing?

I’m gonna confess, ‘nonnie, i’m really glad you picked 25. I’ve been needing an excuse to get this little plot bunny off my chest, and I could twist that prompt enough for that.

Rating: T

Prompt: Each time we climb the stairs, something changes.

Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, ObiAniDala (Past)

Additional Tags: Post-Mustafar AU, Vaderkin, Established Relationship

~2,330 Words

Obi-Wan can’t help the way he falters at the bottom of the loading ramp. The yawning belly of the Naboo starskiff is waiting, welcoming, if only he can find the courage to take that next step. To climb the ramp and change his life irreparably for what feels like the hundredth time over the last few days. When he snuck aboard in attempt to reach Anakin on Mustafar; when he carried Padme’s limp form away from the hellish planet; now, as every muscle and bone in his body aches and the Force whispers with urgency that he must be gone. He is no longer the man that came before these moments, but he finds himself clinging to that once-self anyways.

“Obi-Wan,” A croaking voice calls, and he turns away from the ramp to watch Yoda’s small form hobble across the hanger bay. The bundles on his back wriggle and whine in protest their current conditions, accustomed as they are to the regulated temperatures of Polis Massa’s nursery and not the space-cold bite of the hanger. “Going, where are you?”

“You know where I’m going, Master Yoda,” he says, and doesn’t meet the Master’s eyes. There is shame curled around his chest, constricting his ribcage, at war with the ache of separation in his heart. He has not felt this way since his Padawan years, on Melina/Daan, when he laid his lightsaber in the palm of his Master’s hand and stepped away from an opportunity he worked so hard to earn. He’d been able to turn back from that decision; there will be no return from this one.

A rounded piece of japor, carved with the symbols of Tatooine’s peoples, seems to burn against the skin of his chest. Another pendant, squared and equally beautiful, lays against Padme Amidala’s chilled skin in a casket in the morgue. A reminder; a promise.

“The man you love, he is no longer.” Yoda declares, ears drooping. “A foolish decision, this is.”

“I don’t care.” Obi-Wan replies, sounding far surer than he feels. He can’t remember the last time he felt sure of anything.

Their conversation is momentarily paused when Threepio totters down the ramp of the skiff, his arms waving the awkward manner he has. “Master Kenobi, Artoo says the ship is ready to go whenever you—oh.” He pauses, turning his entire upper torso as he looks between Yoda and Obi-Wan. He is assuredly Anakin’s most eccentric creation. “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting?”

“No, Threepio. Actually, your timing is excellent. Come here please.” The droid waddles over to Obi-Wan, waiting expectantly for his command. Carefully, ever carefully, Obi-Wan slips the pack from his back, looping it around the droid’s neck and shoulders, untrusting of his rather clumsy hands. Threepio immediately begins to protest, but Kenobi is quick to cut him off. “Threepio, please. Take the twins into the ship, and tell Artoo that should I not return—should anyone try to board this ship but me—he’s to take off immediately. He has the coordinates.”

“Master Kenobi, I couldn’t possibly—” the droid babbles.

“Go, Threepio.” Obi-Wan orders, brokering no argument, and the droid goes.Yoda sighs, watching the golden droid patter back up the ramp, agonizingly careful of the sling Obi-Wan placed around him and its precious cargo. He allows his gimer stick to fall to the ground, reaching instead for the lightsaber at his hip. “Allow you to take the children, I cannot.”

Obi-Wan snags his own weapon from his belt. He ignites the blade—always the first to do so, it seems. He doesn’t want to fight, but he will if he’s pushed. Yoda is a strong opponent, but Kenobi knows himself to have the upper hand. After all, he is the only one here to have ever defeated a Sith in single combat. “They should be with him.”

“The last hope of the galaxy, they are.”

“They’re just children! Infants! What good can come of placing the weight of the galaxy on the shoulders of children? Is that not how we got ourselves into this mess?”

“Blinded, you have become, by fear and love,” the little, green Master says with a solemn shake of his balding head. He flicks the ignition switch of his own ‘saber. “Failed you, the Jedi have. Sorry, I am, Obi-Wan.”

There is blood on the boarding ramp of the skiff that’s settled in the hanger bay of the once Jedi Temple. It has ceased to be so, since claimed by Sidious for his grand Imperial Palace, and no Jedi would be foolish enough to return to this place without a desire to join their people in the majesty of the Force. Vader would think that this was the case, would interpret this as the final stand of a Jedi who wished to die with their people, if he didn’t recognize this particular ship.

Padme’s ship.

Vader knows that his wife is dead. When he’d reached into the Force over the last few days, the glimmer of light that was her presence was gone. As much as he’d liked to believe his Master lying, that he’s just trying to control Vader through his grief, there is no arguing with the Force. That is, after all, how he got himself into this mess.

He ascends the ramp, Cody to his left and just a step behind. The commander shifts his weapon awkwardly, trying to find a position where he can cover Vader’s non-dominant side and still maneuver. He is accustomed to standing at Obi-Wan’s right, and he’s hardly Rex. It is an uncomfortable situation for them both as they follow the trail of blood up the ramp and into the ship’s belly.

The places where Vader’s new artificial limbs meet flesh ache with movement. There had been quite a commotion from the medical droids watching him when he’d attempted to leave the bay, as he really should not be up and moving just yet. That hadn’t stopped him; it could have been worse. If Obi-Wan hadn’t had hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t reached for him, hadn’t dragged Anakin up the bank and out of the lava’s reach.

No. He’s not going to think about Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan, his husband; Obi-Wan, who turn his back on him; Obi-Wan who—

“Oh Master Anakin, thank goodness you’re here!” Throwing an arm out to still Cody’s rising weapon, Vader watches as Threepio totters into view from the ship’s small crew cabin, where the trail of blood disappears. He’s surprised to see the droid here; he’d thought Obi-Wan would have— “You must come quickly! Master Kenobi seems to have malfunctioned!”

Vader feels his heartrate pick up. When he’d seen the skiff land, he hadn’t let himself hope that perhaps his husband had come back to him. It seems to be the case, if Threepio is telling the truth, and that thought terrifies him more than it offers relief. There is so much blood on the floor. With a sharp wave, he instructs Cody to go find a medic, then follows Threepio into the bunkroom.

“He seemed to be functioning fine at the start of our journey, but then he fell over and I haven’t been able to rouse him.”

Kenobi is laid out on the durasteel floor of the skiff, curled around his stomach, breath coming worryingly shallow. Around him, staining the cream of his robes and the grey floor, is a puddle of blood that sets Vader on edge. He drops to his knees at the man’s side, turning him over onto his back to reveal the source of his injury.

There, stretching from hip to hip, is a gaping cut in the man’s abdomen. Vader has seen enough lightsaber wounds to recognize the cauterized burns to the edge, and the swollen, red flesh around it as infection begins to set in. It’s a miracle Kenobi isn’t dead already; any deeper, and he certainly would have already bled out. “What happened?” He snarls at the droid, who is still babbling on about the journey here. When that doesn’t seem to get his attention, he repeats the question in a louder voice.

“Oh! Dear me! Master Kenobi thought it best to return Luke and Leia to you after Mistress Padme—after she—”

“Threepio,” Vader presses.

“Master Yoda stopped Master Kenobi in the hanger. I assume they fought, as he was injured when he returned to the ship!”

Cody returns then, trailing Kix and several other clones in his wake. Vader is shooed away while the medic and the other clones lift Obi-Wan onto a stretcher. Kix runs a scanner over the wounded Jedi, pronouncing him alive, if in critical condition.

“You fought Yoda for me…” Vader breathes as the party pushes Kenobi’s stretcher out of the quarters and off toward the Palace’s medical bay. It’s then that the other part of what Threepio told him connects, and he whirls on the droid once again. “Threepio? Who are Luke and Leia?” He demands.

The golden droid awkwardly waves an arm toward the singular bunk, the entrance to which has been carefully blocked off by a wall of pillows and linens. If not for the bloody handprints staining the fabric, Vader might have been amused by the care taken for such a menial task, as is his husband’s nature.

Peeking over the edge of the makeshift wall, he nearly startles backwards at what he finds: two infants, curled up together in the small nest. They’ve somehow managed to sleep through the earlier commotion, but seem to be slowly waking under his stare. The one on the left is the first to open their eyes, releasing a soft burble when they catch sight of Vader.

The Sith reaches down, taking gentle hold of the infant’s tiny hand, his mechanical limbs suddenly seeming too large and unwieldy. There is a band around the child’s wrist, and he adjusts the slip of flimsi until he read the print upon it.

Skywalker, Leia.

Vader feel his heart leap into his throat, barely daring to read the print on the other child’s wrist tag.

Skywalker, Luke.

These are his children.

For a moment, there is perfect stillness in the small skiff. The children, both of their eyes open now, stare up at him as he gapes down at them. The children; his children. His children, who Obi-Wan sought to return to him even if it cost him his life.

His Master told him the child died with his wife.

Rage boils up in Vader’s chest as he carefully scoops the children from their place on the cot, retrieving the sling that’s still tied around Threepio’s form and settling the twins inside it. He ties the bundle around himself and sweeps from the ship; he needs to have words with his Master. First, though, he has a duty to his children.

Obi-Wan wakes slowly, aware first of the pulsing ache in his abdomen, then the light that stings at his eyes. He moans, low and pained, and a hand settles gently on his chest.

“Try not to move,” a familiar voice says, and Obi-Wan forces his eyes open. Anakin—Vader—hover above him, concern evident on his face as he checks Obi-Wan over. “You were in the bacta tank for a few days, but the med droids say you still need rest.

Scrutinizing the man above him, Obi-Wan comes to the conclusion that there is something wrong. Vader’s right eye is hidden behind a patch. He didn’t do that, and the scar Ventress left behind had miraculously missed the eye itself.

“W’happened?” He slurs, bringing an unsteady hand up to brush against the patch. The place where the scar was before seems to have been opened again, the wound far worse this time.

Vader catches the hand, pulling it down to his lips and laying a series of soft kisses to his knuckles. “I had a discussion with my Master on the matter of his deceit. He told me you betrayed me—that the twins died with Padme.”

“They didn’t—I didn’t.”

“I know,” Vader replies, smiling fondly down at him. “Which is why my Master is dead.”

For a moment, Obi-Wan stares up at him, uncomprehending, then a slow smile stretches over his face. He frees his hand from his husband’s grasp, cupping his face. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

Vader turns his face into Obi-Wan’s palm, pressing another kiss into the skin. “Anything for you, my love. And for our children.”

“How are they?”

“Getting stronger every day,” Vader purrs. “Would you like to see them?”

Obi-Wan nods, and the man vanishes from the room. He’s only gone a moment, returning with the twins in his arms and Artoo trailing behind him. The droid is engaging him in an argument that Obi-Wan cannot understand, but Vader releases a put-upon sigh that means it’s something they’ve fought over before.

“No, Artoo, you can’t hold them.” The Sith announces, settling the twins on the blankets at Obi-Wan’s side. The little droid rolls to the edge of the bed, optic sensors fixed on the children, and releases a series of unhappy noises. “I know Threepio got to hold them; Theepio has arms. You, my little friend, do not.”

The droid lets out an offended blat while Vader clambers onto the bed after the children. With his aid, Obi-Wan is able to roll over onto his side, his gaze alternating between the twins and his husband.

Even when falling Vader never wanted power; he doesn’t have the taste for politics required to successfully lead an empire. Now, without Sidous’ influence and with a family to raise, there is a chance that he may relinquish the power he’s inherited in the wake of his Master’s death. The rebellion Bail discussed in hushed tones at Polis Massa may not be necessary after all.

Obi-Wan sighs, watching the blue that bleeds into the gold of Vader’s eyes, and for the first time feels like he made the right decision when he dragged himself up the skiff’s ramp.